Leading Indicators Keep Outpacing 2025

The single best leading indicator we track, the new listing to pending ratio, flipped green again this past week at 0.51, and that puts us on pace for what could be roughly ten weeks in a row of outperforming 2025 once the late-reporting pending updates flow through. The ratio compares how many new listings hit the market against how many go under contract, and a lower number means demand is catching up to supply faster than new inventory is arriving. Out of the first fifteen weeks of 2026, we have only underperformed last year in five of them, and the week of March 16 through 22 is sitting at 0.81, meaning one or two more backdated pendings flips that week green too.

The reason this matters: builders are parking new construction in active status and then switching listings to pending two to three weeks after the contract was actually written. Ninety percent of what I am seeing on this is new construction. The corporate sign-off process for production builders runs on a batch cycle, and when the executed contract finally comes back, the admin backdates the pending to the original agreement date. That is why we go back and refresh the prior weeks each Monday, and that is why the trendline keeps getting stronger as more data hardens.

Price-Change Activity Skews Heavily Toward Drops

Of all the weekly list-price changes that happened across active inventory this past week, 92% were price decreases and the balance were increases. That ratio was 82% three weeks ago, and we have not seen it this skewed to the downside since October. This is a flow measure, not a stock measure. It describes the direction sellers are moving their prices when they move them at all, not the share of total inventory that has reduced. The stock measure is separate and sits at 46.5% of all active listings having taken at least one price drop.

The message behind the flow number is straightforward: buyers are re-engaging, but a portion of sellers are still pricing above what this market will support. Buyers are not being rushed into bad decisions by headlines about tightening inventory, because across most of the metro this is a balanced market, and they know another comparable home is right behind the one they are looking at today.

Where the market is different is at the zip-code level. 78739 in Southwest Austin is hot, along with two other zip codes scoring in the top bucket of our composite score. If you are writing offers there, the 2021 and 2022 playbook is back on the table: offers over list, and in some cases waiving the appraisal contingency in TREC paragraph 8 to get the deal done. Hyperlocal is the only lens that works right now.

The Bifurcation Has Reversed

Last year, Austin's top 25th percentile of sold homes propped up the average sold price. This year the opposite is happening. Over the most recent 30-day sold window, the top 25th percentile is down 5.4% year over year, while the bottom 25th percentile is down only 3.1%. The top tier is taking more of the pricing pressure. That is why the average sold price is off 1.6% year over year at $573,223, and the median sold price for April is essentially flat at $445,000.

From the May 2022 peak, the average is down 15.94% and the median is down 19.09%. If April 2026 turns out to be the floor, it would take roughly 57 months of the 25-year compound appreciation rate of 4.74% to return to the $551,209 peak median.

Where Appreciation Still Lives

Eight cities are up year over year on median sold price: Bastrop, Burnet, Dale, Lago Vista, Liberty Hill, Manor, Smithville, and Wimberley. Every one of them sits on the outer edge of the metro. The core is doing the opposite. The city of Austin median is down 4.4% year to date. The hardest-hit cities so far this year are Marble Falls at -17.8%, Lockhart at -10.9%, San Marcos at -9.7%, and Elgin at -8.7%.

78705 Is the Market You Walk Away From

Our composite score blends activity index, absorption rate, days on market, and sellers per buyer into a single 0 to 100 reading, and it flagged exactly one cold zip code this cycle: 78705, the West Campus and central UT area, at 12.7 sellers per available buyer. That is the only "cold" classification across 75 zip codes. Unless a seller there is willing to price at least 20% below the lowest comparable active listing, taking that listing is not worth the marketing dollars. Three zip codes are hot, four are warm, 44 are balanced, and 23 are cool.

The Absorption Rate Flipped Positive

March's final absorption rate, sold divided by active, closed at 21.47%, and that outperformed March 2025. That is the first month this year we have beaten the prior year on absorption. January and February both underperformed. April is tracking to outperform as well. The market flow score for March came in at 4.96, right on the long-run median and a meaningful step up from the sub-5 readings we have been printing.

Rates and the Bond Market

Rates held steady over the weekend. Conventional 30-year is at 6.375% and FHA 30-year is at 5.875%. The bond market had a rough Thursday on April 16, then rallied Friday when Iran signaled it intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A disabled container ship in the region briefly pushed oil futures up 7%, but the rate side absorbed it cleanly. Favorable conditions going into the week, and that matters because affordability gains are doing real work in bringing buyers back to the table.

Closing Paragraph and Action Checklist

The leading indicators have outperformed 2025 in ten of the last fifteen weeks once the late-reporting pendings settle, and March's absorption rate finally closed green year over year. Pricing will follow, the way it always does, and the agents who are in conversations right now about zip-code-level data, about the bifurcation reversal, and about the difference between what the headlines say and what the data actually shows are the agents who will own the second half of 2026. Get out of the macro. Get into the neighborhood.

This Week's Action Items

• Refresh your zip-code-level activity index and months of inventory before every listing appointment
• Flag any listing client pricing into the skewed price-change environment and recalibrate before the reduction is forced
• For buyer clients in 78739 or other hot zips, prepare the TREC paragraph 8 appraisal conversation in advance
• Do not take a listing in 78705 unless the seller commits to pricing 20% below the lowest active comparable
• Pull the absorption rate and market flow score into your Tuesday client calls so you lead with the leading indicators
• Update the Austin Metrics app to the latest iOS version and leave a five-star review