Austin Real Estate Analyst Market Commentary – July 17, 2025

The Austin housing market continues its path toward equilibrium—if not outright stagnation—as data from the July 17, 2025 Daily Real Estate Briefing highlights persistent inventory expansion, sluggish buyer activity, and pricing dynamics that favor negotiation over urgency.

Active residential listings sit at 17,784, just 292 units shy of the all-time high reached in late June. This represents a year-over-year inventory increase of over 21.5%, and more notably, a 45.4% increase year-to-date, a reflection of a steadily cooling absorption environment. While inventory hasn’t yet broken through June’s record, the current number signals that sellers remain active and motivated, but buyer demand is simply not keeping pace.

The absorption environment is best illustrated through the Months of Inventory, now sitting at 6.33 months—a 16.8% increase over this time last year. This elevated figure suggests that Austin has firmly shifted into a buyer’s market by historical standards. The historic norm for Months of Inventory typically sits closer to 4.0, a level aligned with a balanced market. In today’s environment, sellers are increasingly faced with the need to reduce list prices, evidenced by 58.0% of all active listings having recorded at least one price drop.

The Active-to-Sold ratio tells a similar story. Currently at 17.82%, it is substantially below the long-term average of 31.92%, signaling a deeply sluggish turnover rate. Similarly, the Market Flow Score (MFS)—a composite score that measures buyer momentum and inventory turnover—is at 5.16, well below the historical average of 6.61. These two metrics together confirm what agents and market watchers already suspect: inventory is outpacing absorption, and buyers are taking their time.

From a demand standpoint, the Cumulative Pending Sales metric shows further softness. Year-to-date, only 24,754 homes have gone under contract, which is down 11.4% from 2024 and sits 3.3% below the historical average. The Monthly New Listing to Pending Ratio is at 0.60, indicating that for every ten homes listed, only six are going under contract. This imbalance is not new, but the persistence of this trend into July shows that Austin has yet to reach a new market rhythm.

This supply-demand mismatch is further magnified by sales data. A total of 17,889 homes have sold from January through July, representing a 4.8% year-over-year decline, even though it remains 7.7% above the 25-year average. Sales density—measured per 100,000 population and per 1,000 REALTORS—has dropped to 701 and 961, respectively. These declines of 7.0% and 0.6% year-over-year, combined with being 20.5% and 24.4% below average, are symptoms of a broader deceleration in buyer-side urgency and affordability constraints.

Prices have also continued to correct from their pandemic-era peak. The average sold price for July sits at $597,935, down 12.3% from the May 2022 peak of $681,939. The median sold price sits at $450,000, a full 18.2% below the peak of $550,000. Tracking price movement over a three-year horizon, the median price is now down 12.6% from July 2022. If Austin were to resume its long-term 4.981% compound annual appreciation rate today, it would take until October 2029—over four years—to return to that previous peak of $551,020.

Segment-level pricing reveals a bifurcated market. The top 25th percentile is showing resilience, with year-over-year price growth of 0.88%, while the bottom 25th percentile saw prices fall by 4.41%. This divergence in performance suggests that higher-end homes—often purchased with cash or by equity-rich move-up buyers—are holding value better than lower-priced inventory where buyers are more likely to be constrained by interest rates and tighter lending standards.

Geographically, the city of Austin itself is exhibiting relative price stability compared to outlying areas. Months of inventory within city limits rose to 6.34 months, a 21.5% year-over-year increase. However, in surrounding markets like Jarrell, Cedar Creek, and Marble Falls, inventory has surged by over 100% compared to last July. The YTD increase in inventory for Austin proper, at 45.4%, reflects broad-based oversupply and waning urgency at nearly every price point and location.

Interestingly, new listings have only grown modestly. The year-to-date total is 31,798, just 0.8% higher than this time last year—but still 20.3% above the long-term average. This uptick confirms that listing activity remains elevated, but not excessively so. What’s changed is absorption. With cumulative pending sales trailing and the new listings outpacing them by 7,044 units year-to-date, unsold inventory is accumulating quickly.

This stockpile of homes on the market—many with price drops—has effectively weakened seller leverage. And while we’re not seeing panic-selling or deep discounts broadly across the board, the longer a property sits on the market, the greater the buyer’s negotiating power becomes. It’s a slow bleed rather than a crash, but the leverage is clearly shifting.

The big picture here is that Austin is in the midst of a sustained rebalancing. Supply is growing steadily. Demand is muted but not absent. Prices are stabilizing at new lower levels after their 2022 highs. The luxury segment continues to outperform the entry-level market, and seller strategy must be responsive to these crosscurrents. Sellers hoping to price for spring 2022 conditions will struggle. Meanwhile, buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines now have options, time, and leverage.

Scroll down to view the full Austin Daily Real Estate Briefing PDF for July 17, 2025.​