The Austin housing market has entered a defining moment in its cycle, where rising inventory, shifting prices, and selective buyer activity are reshaping the path forward in 2025.
Scroll down to view the full Austin Daily Real Estate Briefing PDF for October 27, 2025.
Austin’s housing market continues to transition from the breakneck pace of the pandemic years toward a slower, data-driven balance between supply and demand. As of October 27, 2025, active residential listings total 16,443 — a 14.9 percent increase from the same time last year — yet still 1,703 below June’s peak of 18,146. The market’s character today is one of excess supply meeting deliberate demand: nearly 59.4 percent of listings have experienced at least one price drop, an unmistakable signal that sellers are adjusting to new realities.
Cumulative new listings from January through October stand at 44,519, up 4.3 percent year over year and 22.5 percent above the long-term average. Pending sales tell the other half of the story: 3,930 this month versus 4,130 a year ago, a decline of 4.8 percent. Cumulative pendings for the year reach 37,116, down 3.3 percent year over year but still 4.6 percent above average, showing that while transactions have slowed, they remain within historic parameters.
The Activity Index, which measures the ratio of pending to active plus pending listings, has dropped to 19.3 percent from 22.4 percent a year ago — a 13.9 percent decline that places Austin firmly in the contraction zone. New construction listings maintain a 26.6 percent Activity Index while resale homes sit at 16.3 percent, confirming that existing-home sellers are feeling the slowdown most acutely.
Housing Prices
Home prices continue to drift below the 2022 peak but remain stable month to month. The average sold price in October is $600,190, roughly 12 percent below May 2022’s high of $681,939. The median sold price of $439,500 reflects a 20 percent drop from the same peak, a loss of $111,000 in nominal value. Compared with three years ago, the median is down 6.5 percent, underscoring how the pandemic price surge has partially unwound.
Price movement is not uniform across the market. Homes in the bottom quarter of prices are down 2.78 percent year over year with price-per-square-foot declines of 4.4 percent, while the top quarter has posted gains of 6.53 percent in price and 1.83 percent in price-per-square-foot. This divergence illustrates the market’s bifurcation: affordable segments are softer, but upper-tier properties still draw demand from equity-rich buyers and relocators.
Austin’s 25-year compound appreciation rate of 4.882 percent provides a lens for long-term context. If today’s median price marks the bottom of this cycle, it would take approximately 60 months — or until September 2030 — to return to a peak value around $551,779 under average growth conditions. That projection underscores the stability of Austin’s long-term value curve even through short-term fluctuations.
Regional Trends
Across the metro area, price and demand patterns are fragmented. Only nine cities are posting year-over-year price appreciation while twenty remain negative. The resale Activity Index reveals that most submarkets are in slowdown mode. A handful of ZIP codes such as 78739 and 78757 still show healthy absorption around 30 percent, but the majority of Austin proper operates between 15 and 20 percent. Suburbs like Liberty Hill, Bastrop, and Lago Vista are particularly oversupplied, with two-thirds of their inventory seeing price reductions. Outlying counties that benefited from remote-work migration during 2021–2022 are now seeing that demand recede as commuting patterns normalize.
List-to-Sale Performance and Market Flow
The Monthly New Listing-to-Pending Ratio sits at 0.66, meaning that for every hundred new homes listed, only sixty-six go under contract. Historically, Austin averages 0.82, making current absorption about twenty percent slower than normal. For 2025 so far, there are 7,403 more new listings than pendings, a clear measure of oversupply. The Absorption Rate — the share of active listings that close in a month — is just 10.75 percent versus a historic average of 31.68 percent. Austin’s Market Flow Score, a composite measure of market efficiency, registers 1.75 on a scale of 0 to 10, down sharply from its historic mean of 6.58. Taken together, these figures portray a market operating well below its normal turnover speed.
Months of Inventory
The Months of Inventory has risen from 5.11 in October 2024 to 5.84 in October 2025, a 14.2 percent increase year over year and a 22.8 percent increase year to date. This metric serves as the clearest indicator of market leverage: below five months typically signifies a seller’s market, five to seven months is neutral, and above seven shifts control to buyers. Austin now sits near the upper edge of neutral, flirting with buyer dominance in many ZIP codes.
The city-level data paint the same picture. Areas such as Manchaca and Cedar Park remain tight with sub-four-month inventory, while places like Liberty Hill, Bastrop, and Burnet exceed six months. At the extreme end, Spicewood and Dale are well above seventeen and twenty-one months respectively. This dispersion illustrates how Austin’s market has split into micro-markets where local conditions drive pricing outcomes more than any single regional trend.
Sales Volume and Market Efficiency
A total of 2,368 homes closed in October. From January through October, 25,611 sales have been recorded, down 3.4 percent from last year but still 7.2 percent above the long-term average. Yet when adjusted for population growth and agent count, the numbers are less favorable: sales per 100,000 residents have fallen 5.6 percent, and sales per 1,000 Realtors are down nearly 24 percent from average. With more agents competing for fewer transactions, the importance of pricing accuracy, marketing discipline, and relationship trust has never been greater.
Market Outlook
Looking ahead, Austin’s housing market appears poised for gradual stabilization rather than rapid rebound. Inventory growth has started to slow, and price drops are becoming smaller, signaling that many sellers have aligned their expectations with buyer affordability levels. The market is hovering just below the 20 percent Activity Index threshold that historically precedes re-expansion. If interest rates ease and economic conditions hold steady, 2026 could mark the start of a slow but sustainable recovery phase driven by local job growth and in-migration. Until then, the theme is adjustment and patience: buyers are in control today, but balance is on the horizon.
Conclusion
Austin’s real estate market is neither booming nor busted — it is re-calibrating. The combination of high inventory, muted sales velocity, and firm long-term fundamentals defines the 2025 environment. For sellers, data-based pricing and flexibility are essential. For buyers, expanded choices and negotiating leverage present rare opportunities. And for investors, Austin’s 25-year appreciation trend remains a reminder that temporary softness is part of a healthy market cycle.
