A “For Sale” sign stands outside a home in Central Texas in September 2021. Home sales and prices fell across Central Texas in February, while pending sales rose ahead of the spring buying season.
The Austin-area housing market continued to cool in February, with both sales and prices falling across the region. But an uptick in pending sales suggests buyer activity may be starting to pick up.
Closed sales across the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro slumped 3.6% from a year earlier, according to Unlock MLS data, and the median price slipped 3.6% to $412,000. But pending sales jumped nearly 14%, a sign that buyers may be stepping back into the market as the spring homebuying season approaches.
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FILE — A home for sale in Austin. While prices fell in most Central Texas counties in July, Austin and Travis County posted modest year-over-year gains.
Jay Janner, Jay Janner
Inventory in the region rose to 6.5 months, up 1.1 months from a year earlier — a level generally considered to signal a market balanced between buyers and sellers.
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“Sellers are returning to the market at roughly the same pace as last year, but buyers are coming back faster,” said Vaike O’Grady, market research adviser for Unlock MLS. “These balanced market conditions have given buyers a chance to catch up. It’s a good sign that healthy momentum is fueling the market.”
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Active home listings across the metro dropped to about 10,000, down from roughly 12,000 homes on the market a year ago, which had been typical over the past two years, she said.
Mortgage rates are hovering around 6%, their lowest levels since 2022, which may be helping bring some buyers back into the market.
Nationally, housing activity remained sluggish through the first months of the year. After a surge in December, pending home sales fell 5.8% from a year earlier during the four weeks ending Feb. 15, according to a recent Redfin report. Still, existing home sales rose 1.7% in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
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Within the city of Austin, sales were down 4.7% from a year earlier and the median sale price fell 2.7% to $540,000, a slight but noteworthy pullback after prices largely held steady through the past year. Pending sales jumped 15.1%.
In Travis County, 843 homes sold in February, down 4.5% from a year earlier. The county’s median sale price dipped 2% to $489,900. Pending sales were up 14.4%.
Sales also declined across other parts of the region. Williamson County recorded 663 home sales in February, down 1.8% from a year earlier, but pending sales rose 17.1%. In Hays County, sales fell 3.3% to 267 while pending sales increased 5%.
In Caldwell County, the median price plummeted 23.5% year over year to $221,990, but pending sales skyrocketed 51.5%.
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Across the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro, median rent rates fell 4.8% year over year to $2,000. Closed leases rose 4.2%, and pending leases climbed nearly 17%, Unlock MLS data show.
Much of that shift appears to be driven by a surge in supply. Active lease listings jumped nearly 60% across the metro, while new listings rose more than 18%. In the city of Austin, the number of available rental listings more than doubled from a year earlier, pushing the median rent down 5.6% to $2,100.
In a February interview, O’Grady said that last year’s spring selling season fell short of expectations but she expected stronger activity this year.
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“I’m optimistic that we’ll see more activity this spring than we did last year,” she said at the time.
John Crowe, the 2026 president of Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of Realtors, said the latest data suggests market conditions are becoming more favorable for buyers who had been waiting on the sidelines.
“A lot of buyers have spent the past year watching and waiting, wondering if prices would keep falling or if they should hold out longer,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is that market conditions are increasingly favorable for more buyers to act.”
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