Austin housing continues to shift toward a slower, supply-heavy environment, and today’s numbers highlight just how important pricing strategy and patience have become.
Scroll down to view the full Austin Daily Real Estate Briefing PDF for November 17, 2025.
The Austin real estate market delivered another clear signal today that the region is still working through a long correction phase. Inventory climbed to 15,518 active listings, which is up 13.5 percent from this time last year and far above the levels that defined the market before the pandemic. The majority of homes available today have already taken at least one price drop, with 58.3 percent of all active listings reducing their list price at some point during the listing window. For anyone tracking the austin real estate market or shaping their austin housing forecast, this is the kind of data that shows a market driven more by supply than by demand.
Compared to 2024, today’s inventory levels are running almost two thousand homes higher, and the gap between supply and demand continues to widen. Pending contracts fell 2.2 percent year over year, landing at 3,893. That means buyers are still active, but not at a pace that can keep up with the number of new properties hitting the market. The result is a classic imbalance with more choices for buyers and more pressure on sellers to stand out. Anyone studying the austin market update will notice that this combination is not temporary. It has been building for months.
The new listing pipeline continues to grow faster than demand can absorb. From January through November, the Austin MLS saw 46,742 new listings, which is a 3.0 percent increase year over year and more than 20 percent above the long-term historical average. This is one of the most important trends shaping the current austin real estate forecast. Sellers continue to list aggressively, but buyers are not picking up homes at the same pace they were a few years ago. Even with strong population fundamentals in Central Texas, affordability remains at the center of the slowdown. Higher carrying costs, higher interest rates, and the natural fatigue of a multi-year price run-up have all cooled the absorption side of the market.
On the demand side, cumulative pending sales from January through November sit at 39,522, which is down 4.7 percent from last year. That gap between new listings and new pendings now totals 7,220 units for the year. It is one of the clearest signs that supply is outrunning demand. When new listing volume grows and pending volume shrinks, months of inventory rises, days on market rise, negotiation power shifts toward buyers, and pricing expectations must adapt. We are seeing all of that play out in real time.
The Activity Index, one of the cleanest ways to measure true market velocity, reinforces the same trend. The index dropped from 22.5 percent last year to 20.1 percent today, an 11 percent decline. New construction continues to perform better with an Activity Index of 27.28 percent, while resale homes lag far behind at 17.01 percent. That split shows that builders, with their incentives and rate buydown strategies, continue to capture more buyer activity than individual resale sellers. For the resale side of the Austin housing market, the slowdown is even more noticeable.
Breaking the Activity Index into phases provides deeper clarity. Homes in the expansion phase, where demand runs hot and prices typically rise, are almost nonexistent. The equilibrium zone is also thin, showing that only a small share of the market is truly balanced. Most of today’s resale activity is sitting in the softer phases. About half the resale market sits in the contraction or danger zone, where demand weakens and inventory stacks up, and another third is in what we consider a freeze zone, where buyer paralysis slows the market even further. These are classic conditions of a market correction, and they continue to define the current austin real estate landscape.
Months of Inventory (MOI) is one of the most important metrics for forecasting price pressure, and today’s reading climbed to 5.53 months. This is a 13.8 percent increase from last year and firmly positions the market in a buyer-weighted environment. Compared to historical norms, this is one of the slowest selling environments since before the 2010s. The New Listing to Pending Ratio tells a similar story. The monthly ratio sits at 0.74, and the year-to-date ratio is 0.72. The 25-year average is 0.82, which means Austin is currently well below the long-term healthy balance. Anytime the market runs this far under historical norms, inventory tends to rise and prices tend to soften.
Within the resale segment, months of inventory spreads across five market types, and today Austin shows a heavy concentration in the Buyer Advantage and Buyer Control categories. That means buyers have greater leverage, more time to make decisions, and far more negotiating power than at any point from 2020 through 2022. For sellers, this environment requires stronger pricing discipline and more precise preparation and presentation. For agents, this is not a market where “test the market and adjust later” is a winning strategy. This is a market where aggressive accuracy wins.
The sales data confirms the same trend. Austin recorded 2,297 closed sales in November. Cumulative closings from January to November total 27,957, which is down 3.1 percent year over year, even though that total is still slightly above the long-term average. The broader context matters here. When sold volume climbs above average but still falls year over year, it usually means the market is stabilizing after a surge, not accelerating. In an environment with rising inventory and cooling demand, this pattern is a preview of where prices may continue heading.
The pricing story is one of the clearest signs of the multi-year correction. The average sold price for November came in at $607,783, down from the peak of $681,939 in May 2022. That is a drop of about 10.87 percent, or roughly seventy-four thousand dollars. Median sold price tells an even stronger story. Today’s median sits at $450,000, down from a peak of $550,000 in May 2022. That is an 18.18 percent decline and a one hundred thousand dollar reduction from the high. These declines support every major signal sent by today’s inventory and absorption metrics.
When we compare today’s median price to what it was 36 months ago, the Austin housing market sits about 2.17 percent below that level. Considering that Austin’s 25-year compound appreciation rate is 4.981 percent, this shows a rare moment where long-term growth patterns have fully paused. If the current median price of $450,000 represents the true bottom of the correction, the return to the previous peak of $551,741 would take roughly 53 months, or about March 2030. That projection assumes long-term appreciation resumes at its historical pace. If rates remain elevated or inventory continues to climb, the return to peak pricing could take longer.
Price behavior across segments also reveals an important divide. Lower-priced homes in the bottom 25th percentile saw almost no price movement year over year, with a 0.26 percent change in price and a small decline in price per square foot. Meanwhile, the top 25th percentile recorded a 6.30 percent increase in median price and a 3.62 percent rise in price per square foot. This split reflects where the strongest buyer pools remain. Higher-income buyers, often less sensitive to rate pressure, continue to support the upper price tiers, while the lower-priced tiers show more stagnation due to affordability constraints.
City-level price changes underline that broad weakness still outweighs isolated strength. Eight cities saw positive year-over-year median price growth, while twenty-one saw declines. This alignment fits with the overall absorption rate, which is 16.59 percent today. Historically, Austin’s average absorption rate is 31.70 percent. That gap is one of the most important indicators for anyone forecasting Austin’s housing future. When absorption runs nearly half of normal, pricing power stays with buyers, and correction cycles last longer.
The Market Flow Score, which measures the efficiency of the Austin housing market, sits at 4.74 today. That is well below the historical average of 6.59. The score confirms what the other indicators show. Homes are taking longer to sell, buyers have more options, and the market is still digesting excess supply. The Austin real estate market is not frozen, but it is moving slowly. These slow conditions shape every negotiation, every listing strategy, every buyer conversation, and every forecast of where things may go next.
For buyers, the story is simple. Patience pays, and the market offers more choice, more time, and more leverage than Austin has seen in years. For sellers, the message is equally clear. Price correctly on day one, prepare the home with purpose, and understand that buyers are looking closely at value. For investors, today’s environment rewards disciplined underwriting and long-term thinking. For agents, this is a skills market that demands clarity, data, and strong communication. Every part of the system reflects the same truth. Austin housing remains in a correction cycle, and until the supply and demand lines realign, the numbers will continue to reflect that reality.
