Austin housing market given ominous warning

The vertiginous fall of home prices in Austin, Texas, seems to have no end in sight, according to experts who believe that steep declines are likely to continue in the coming months.

A recent analysis by real estate intelligence platform Parcl Labs estimates that the Texas capital will see the biggest downturn in home prices in the country over the next year—even as the cost of buying a home in the city has already fallen drastically from its COVID-19 pandemic peak.

Austin’s housing market, according to Parcl Labs, is currently in “bear territory”—which means, essentially, that property values have been dropping for a consistent period of time—with home prices now over 20 percent down from their peak.

Despite this dip, researchers at the company said, “we still expect home prices to decline 16.5 percent from current levels over the next 12 months. This is the largest expected decline in our coverage universe of 40 real estate markets nationally.”

Behind Austin’s Housing Market Downfall

According to Redfin, the median sale price of a home in May—the latest month for which reliable monthly figures are available—was $557,500, down 5 percent from a year earlier. At their peak in May 2022, home sale prices in the city had reached a median of $667,000—which means that buying property in Austin was over $200,000 more expensive than it had been before the pandemic, when it was around $400,000.

In the same month, home sales in the city were down by 12.1 percent year-over-year, at 861, and those homes that went under contract spent an average of 48 days on the market, six more than in May 2024. Active listings in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area totaled 12,525, up from 9,902 a year earlier. Inventory was actually higher than pre-pandemic level and the highest going as far as 2016, according to data from Realtor.com.

“It’s important to understand why these adjustments are happening and what they represent for the health of the market,” Emily Girard, chief executive officer (CEO) of Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of REALTORS (ABOR), told Newsweek. “What we’re seeing in Austin is a necessary and overdue normalization after an unprecedented period of price acceleration during the pandemic. It is a return to sustainability.”

Home prices skyrocketed during the pandemic homebuying frenzy unleashed by historically low mortgage rates.

“In 2021 during the pandemic, more homes were sold in the Austin-Round Rock MSA than ever before, and sales dollar volume yielded more than a $23 billion impact on the Austin-area economy,” Girard said. “The pandemic led to increased demand as buyers in the market had more disposable income and reevaluated their needs in a living space after spending months at home.”

She added: “That, combined with record-low interest rates at the time and an Austin economy that continued to make major company relocation announcements regularly, led to more homes being sold and prices increasing to an unsustainable level.”

The price declines that the city has been experiencing for the past couple of years represent “healthy adjustments,” Girard said as the market “normalizes.”

And prices, as experts say, are continuing to fall.

According to Redfin data, Austin was one of the metros reporting the biggest year-over-year declines in median sale prices, at -4.2 percent, in the four weeks ending July 6.

Buyers on Top

The Austin housing market downturn does not mean that the city has now become undesirable for buyers—quite the opposite.

“For buyers, this is one of the most favorable environments we’ve seen in years,” Girard said. “Buyers have time to shop, compare and negotiate—luxuries that weren’t available during the pandemic boom. They’re in the market with more intention and more options, especially with increased affordability for first-time and moderate-income homebuyers.”

Sellers might have a harder time accepting that they no longer have the upper hand, and they may be forced to compromise on prices—especially as price declines are expected to continue.

“Prices will continue to drop this year. That’s because the last half of the year we always have more inventory. And if you ever look at the seasonal bell curve in Austin’s selling season, prices always come down in the last half of the year,” Austin-based realtor Jeremy Knight told Newsweek. “Yet, there are a lot of buyers on the sidelines. If we do see rates come down in the last half of the year, you’ll see more closed numbers and buyers frantic in the market.”

Unfortunately, a majority of experts expect mortgage rates to continue hovering between the 6 and 7 percent marks through this year and 2026.