As of Monday, January 19, 2026, there are 12,836 active residential listings in the Austin area. While this is down 5,310 homes from the cycle high of 18,146 recorded in late June 2025, active inventory remains meaningfully higher than this time last year. Compared to January 2025, active listings are up 12.9 percent, reinforcing that supply conditions remain looser than a year ago despite the decline from last summer’s peak.
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More than half of the market continues to show signs of pricing stress. Currently, 52.6 percent of all active listings have experienced at least one price reduction. This level of price adjustment is consistent with a market where sellers are being forced to respond to slower demand rather than buyers competing upward. For buyers, this creates increased leverage and optionality. For sellers, it reinforces the importance of correct initial pricing and realistic expectations. For agents, it highlights the need for data-driven pricing conversations early in the listing process.
Breaking inventory down by type further clarifies the story. Of the 12,836 active listings, 3,960 are new construction and 8,876 are resale homes. While builders continue to manage supply through incentives and controlled releases, resale sellers do not have the same flexibility. This difference is increasingly visible in price behavior and days on market across the region.
Pending listings provide another lens into demand. There are currently 3,300 homes under contract, down 3.8 percent compared to January 2025. This decline in pendings, even as active inventory has risen year over year, signals softer buyer engagement. New construction accounts for 1,365 of those pending listings, while resale homes make up 1,935. Builders continue to outperform the resale market in contract activity, largely due to rate buydowns, closing cost incentives, and pricing strategies unavailable to most individual sellers.
The Activity Index reinforces this cooling demand trend. The overall Activity Index is currently 20.5 percent, down from 23.2 percent one year ago, representing an 11.8 percent decline year over year. New construction continues to outperform resale with an Activity Index of 25.63 percent, which places it near the upper end of softening conditions. Resale homes, however, sit at 17.90 percent, firmly in contraction territory.
When resale activity is mapped across market phases, the distribution is telling. Roughly 40 percent of resale markets are now in the Contraction or Danger Zone, defined by Activity Index readings between 15 and 20 percent. Another 37 percent have slipped into Crisis or Freeze conditions below 15 percent. Only a small share of markets remain in softening territory, and virtually none are showing expansion characteristics. This distribution explains why price reductions are widespread and why sellers are encountering longer marketing timelines.
Supply and demand imbalance is further illustrated by the New Listing to Pending Ratio. On a monthly basis, this ratio currently sits at 0.56, meaning that for every new listing coming to market, only about half a home is going under contract. From a historical perspective, this is notably weak. The 25 year average for this ratio is 0.82, highlighting how far current conditions have drifted from long-term norms. Year to date, cumulative new listings exceed cumulative pending listings by 703 homes, reinforcing that supply continues to outpace demand.
Months of Inventory offers a clear summary of where the market stands. Austin currently sits at 4.56 months of inventory, up from 3.97 months one year ago, a 15 percent increase. While this is not an extreme oversupply, it places the market well outside seller-favorable conditions. On a resale-only basis, inventory distribution shows that a growing share of markets are now classified as Buyer Advantage or Buyer Control, where excess supply leads to downward pricing pressure and extended days on market.
From a longer-term perspective, overall inventory levels in Austin are relatively flat compared to prior years. Citywide months of inventory are down 0.6 percent year over year and up just 1.2 percent over the past two years. This suggests that while conditions are softer than the pandemic-era boom, the market is not experiencing runaway supply growth. Instead, demand contraction is the dominant factor shaping current outcomes.
Sales activity reflects this slower pace. A total of 1,862 homes have sold year to date, down 1.0 percent from the same period last year but still 21.9 percent above the long-term average. When adjusted for population, cumulative sales equate to 70 homes sold per 100,000 residents, which is 3.1 percent lower than last year and 13.0 percent below historical norms. This indicates that population growth alone is no longer sufficient to drive transaction volume at prior levels.
From the agent perspective, cumulative sales per 1,000 Realtors stand at 108, which is up 7.4 percent year over year but still 7.5 percent below average. This reflects a market where fewer agents are capturing a larger share of transactions, while overall opportunity remains constrained compared to previous cycles.
Pricing trends remain one of the most important signals for buyers and sellers alike. The average sold price in January stands at $582,617. While this remains elevated in absolute terms, it represents a 14.56 percent decline from the May 2022 peak of $681,939, a reduction of roughly $99,000. Median pricing tells an even clearer story. The median sold price is now $425,000, down 22.73 percent from the May 2022 peak of $550,000, representing a $125,000 decline.
When compared to prices from 36 months ago, the median sold price is down 5.55 percent. This confirms that the market has not only corrected from its peak but has also underperformed its own recent historical baseline. Despite this, long-term fundamentals remain intact. Austin’s 25 year compound annual appreciation rate is approximately 4.554 percent.
Assuming the market has reached a cyclical bottom at the current median price of $425,000, a return to the prior peak of roughly $551,000 would take approximately 71 months, or until November 2031, under a normalized appreciation scenario. This projection underscores the importance of time horizon in housing decisions and the risks of assuming a rapid price rebound.
Price behavior is not uniform across the market. The bottom 25th percentile of homes saw prices decline 3.13 percent year over year, with price per square foot down 5.50 percent. In contrast, the top 25th percentile experienced price growth of 6.90 percent, with price per square foot up 1.25 percent. This divergence highlights that higher-quality, well-located properties continue to attract demand, while entry-level and lower-tier segments remain under pressure.
City-level appreciation data further supports this split. Only six cities are showing year-over-year median price increases, while twenty-four are down. This uneven performance reinforces the need for hyper-local analysis rather than broad market assumptions.
Demand relative to supply is also captured by the Absorption Rate, currently at 23.65 percent. This is well below the historical average of 31.61 percent and signals a slower-moving market where inventory is taking longer to clear. While not indicative of a frozen market, it clearly favors buyers over sellers.
Interestingly, the Market Flow Score stands at 8.59, above the historical average of 6.59. This suggests that while volume is lower and pricing is softer, the market continues to function efficiently. Homes that are priced correctly and aligned with buyer expectations are still transacting, even if the broader environment is slower.
For buyers, today’s Austin housing market offers more choice, more negotiating power, and clearer pricing signals than in recent years. For sellers, success depends heavily on realism, preparation, and strategic pricing. For investors, the data reinforces the importance of patience, underwriting discipline, and long-term assumptions rather than short-term appreciation expectations. For agents, this is a market that rewards data literacy, clear communication, and proactive guidance.
