Texas Realtors Chairman Jennifer Wauhob and Texas Real Estate Research Center housing economist Yanling Mayer (Texas Realtors, Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, Getty)

Midland’s median home price surpassed the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in the third quarter, in a sign that Texas’s four major markets are balancing out from pandemic-level highs.

While the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos statistical area market had the highest median home price in the third quarter of 2026 at $420,000, the runner up is not Dallas, Houston or San Antonio: it’s West Texas’s oil-dependent Midland, according to data from Texas Realtors’ third quarter housing report. The report is provided by the Data Relevance Project, with analysis compiled by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

Midland’s median home price is $386,000, a 3 percent increase from the same period last year. Meanwhile, DFW-Arlington median home prices dropped 1.1 percent in the same time period to $385,535.

The metroplex’s drop in median home prices is in line with the four largest markets in Texas, which each saw decreases of 1.2 percent or less, according to the report. For DFW and Arlington, the decline reflects relatively weak sales activity compared with last year, as well as persistent affordability pressures, according to Yanling Mayer, a research economist with the Texas Real Estate Research Center. But for Midland, a market that did not see a housing boom during the pandemic, the city’s strong oil economy has allowed for continued home price growth.

“There is a steady trend of Midland median sales prices inching upward, while Dallas prices are softening. The gap between Midland and Dallas is pretty much closing up,” she said.

She said conditions in Texas are generally challenging, with high mortgage rates, cost of living and inflation, and inventory that’s slightly decreased from last year.

Though Midland surpassed the DFW market this quarter, Laura Camp, the president of the Permian Basin Board of Realtors and associate broker with Keller Williams Realty, said that she hasn’t experienced prices rising significantly in Midland. In fact, she said new home construction has taken off “some of the edge” of high prices with increased supply.

“It’s still a seller’s market, but I feel like we’re easing towards a balanced market. We’re seeing sellers have to do some price drops. We’re seeing some closing costs get negotiated on deals,” she said.

This quarter, Dallas and Houston both had fewer shares of total sales, while sales in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos and San Antonio-New Braunfels increased by about 1 percent and 2.9 percent respectively from the same period last year, according to the report.