More people were trying to sell their homes than those trying to buy them in December, according to a report published on Tuesday by the real estate company Redfin.
There were 47% more home sellers than home buyers nationally. And the buyer’s market was even more extreme in Texas — in the capital, Austin, sellers outnumbered buyers by 128%.
Chen Zao, Redfin’s head of economic research, said it’s almost as if sellers and buyers were living on different planets.
Sellers want to make money, and buyers who are nervous about the economy and high mortgage rates are hesitating to pay that much. If that continues, Zhao said there won’t be a lot of activity.
“They’re finding it hard to find common ground on price,” Zhao said. “And it also does mean that there is some downward pressure on home prices.”
That imbalance is particularly strong in the Sun Belt, Redfin’s analysis found.
Matthew Teifke, an Austin real estate investor, said houses used to be sold in the city within hours. Now, he said they take around three months to sell.
“It’s just coming from craziness in the market for a while,” Teifke said. “You were bidding 100, 200, 300 over. There were 50 offers, and that just wasn’t normal or sustainable.”
Vaike O’Grady, a market research advisor for Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of Realtors, called that change in conditions a return to normalcy. She said sellers will just have to be patient.
“Most of them will still probably make money, but they may not be making those sorts of record-breaking figures that were out there a few years back,” O’Grady said.
While the market may be tilted toward buyers, O’Grady said 2025 was a year of adjustment. But if job growth were to return to Austin this year, she said that might help the market be more balanced.
“There’s still demand for people who want to move to Austin, and some of the sellers are going to become buyers again,” O’Grady said.
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