As of today, there are 14,333 active residential listings across the Austin area. That is still meaningfully below the June 2025 peak of 18,146 listings, but it remains 14.4% higher than this time last year when inventory stood at 12,525. This tells us something important. Inventory pressure has eased from its summer highs, but it has not normalized. Sellers still face more competition than at any point during the 2022 to 2023 cycle.
Scroll down to view the full Austin Daily Real Estate Briefing PDF for December 09, 2025.
Price reductions further reinforce that reality. Today, 57.4% of all active listings have had at least one price drop. That means more than half of sellers have already adjusted expectations and the market is still asking for more adjustments. This level of pricing friction is consistent with a market that remains supply-heavy and demand-constrained.
Supply growth in 2025 was not caused by a lack of listings. In fact, cumulative new listings from January through December reached 48,581, which is up 2.2% year over year and 19.3% above the long-term average. Sellers are active. Confidence to list is present. What has not kept pace is buyer follow-through.
Pending listings tell that side of the story clearly. Active pending contracts total 3,762 today, down 1.6% from last year. Even more telling, cumulative pending listings for the year reached 41,795, which is down 5.4% year over year even though it remains slightly above the long-term average. Listings are arriving faster than contracts, and that gap matters.
The Activity Index captures this imbalance directly. The overall Activity Index sits at 20.8%, down from 23.4% last year, representing an 11.1% decline in market momentum. In plain terms, fewer homes are going under contract relative to the number available. New construction maintains a much stronger Activity Index at 27.90%, while resales lag badly at just 17.53%. That gap explains why builders continue to control buyer attention through incentives and rate buydowns while resellers struggle to differentiate.
When we break the resale market into phases, the warning signs become clearer. Over 76% of resale markets are now operating in either the Contraction or Crisis ranges. These are environments defined by slowing transactions, rising inventory, widening price cuts, and buyer hesitation. Markets in Expansion or Equilibrium are now rare exceptions rather than the rule.
The new listing to pending ratio reinforces this message. The monthly ratio currently sits at 0.64, and the year-to-date ratio is 0.73 compared to a 25-year average of 0.82. When new listings materially outpace new contracts for an extended period, inventory accumulation becomes unavoidable. In 2025 alone, the cumulative difference between new listings and pendings stands at 6,786 homes. That surplus inventory must be resolved either through time, pricing, or withdrawal.
Months of Inventory quantifies the pressure buyers and sellers are experiencing. The overall market is now at 5.10 months of inventory, up 15.7% from last year’s 4.41 months. This places Austin decisively in buyer-advantaged territory. On a resale-only basis, many cities and ZIP codes have already crossed into Buyer Control conditions where inventory exceeds nine months and pricing power shifts heavily away from sellers.
Year-over-year, Austin months of inventory increased 19.6% from December 2024 to December 2025. On a year-to-date basis, months of inventory is up 11.4%. That acceleration is not trivial. It indicates that the supply side of the market remains structurally elevated even after seasonal slowdowns.
Sales volume continues to drift lower, though not catastrophically. December closed with 2,460 sold properties across the Austin area. Cumulative sales from January through December reached 30,177, down 3.9% year over year but still 7.4% above long-term averages. That sounds more positive than it feels. When adjusted for population, cumulative sales equal just 1,177 homes per 100,000 residents, which is 20.8% below average. When adjusted per 1,000 Realtors, productivity is also nearly 23% below normal. The market is working harder to produce fewer transactions per participant.
Prices reflect this slow grind. The average sold price in December came in at $615,957. That is down 9.68%, or about $66,000, from the May 2022 peak of $681,939. Median pricing tells the deeper story. The median sold price now sits at $450,500, down 18.09%, or roughly $100,000, from the $550,000 peak in May 2022. While the pace of decline has slowed, prices have not meaningfully rebounded.
Short-term stabilization does not equal recovery. When tracking median prices against their level 36 months prior, Austin is effectively flat at 0.11%. That signals stagnation, not growth. Using the Austin market’s long-term compound appreciation rate of 4.985%, even if today marks the bottom, it would take roughly 53 months for median prices to return to prior peak levels around $552,095. That puts a full recovery timeline into April 2030.
Price behavior across the distribution supports this projection. Over the past year, homes in the bottom 25th percentile saw prices slip 0.31% and price per square foot drop 2.88%. Meanwhile, the top 25th percentile experienced modest price growth of 1.63% and a 0.33% increase in price per square foot. Higher-quality, better-positioned homes are stabilizing faster, while entry-level and mid-tier homes remain under pressure.
Out of the cities tracked, only 7 show year-over-year median price appreciation, while 22 are down. That imbalance reflects a market still searching for equilibrium rather than one poised for broad-based appreciation.
Demand indicators confirm this caution. The absorption rate, measured as sold listings divided by active listings, sits at 15.46%. The historical average is 31.64%. Less than half of normal absorption speed means inventory is clearing slowly and price competition remains intense. The Market Flow Score, a composite measure of market efficiency, also remains weak at 5.42 compared to a historical norm of 6.58. The system is moving, but not smoothly.
For buyers, this is a market defined by leverage and patience. Inventory selection is wide, price reductions are common, and negotiating strength remains firmly in the buyer’s favor. For sellers, success now requires accurate pricing, realistic timelines, and a willingness to compete head-to-head with both resales and incentivized new construction. For investors, the data argues for disciplined underwriting, long-term horizons, and conservative rent and appreciation assumptions. For agents, this is no longer a volume game but a strategy game.
This Austin market update does not point to chaos or collapse. It shows normalization through duration. Inventory needs time to clear. Prices need time to align. Until demand fundamentally improves, the market will continue working sideways rather than upward.
