Historic Homes and Branded Condos Buck Texas Housing Chill

16 November 2025

Interest rates brought a stubborn chill to the housing market, and for a while, luxury sales seemed immune.

That’s no longer the case.

Today, multimillion-dollar estates throughout the Texas Triangle languish on the market — to the extent that this sluggishness is disrupting the way luxury buyers, sellers and brokers do business in Austin.

High property taxes incentivize privacy in the Texas capital, and the local real estate board has long looked the other way, allowing a robust network for private sales to flourish. The market’s high inventory and decreasing prices, however, are eroding this system.

Sellers who can no longer afford privacy are ditching private platforms like Clubhouse and the Austin Luxury Network in favor of the broad exposure provided by the MLS.

Even though the luxury segment is suffering from the same ailment that’s spread through the wider market, there are still a few stalwart pockets of strength, namely, historic luxury homes and branded luxury condos.

Historic homes are proving to be insulated from market swings, said Douglas Elliman agent Emily Waldmann, who works in Austin. Plus, historic homes are rare in Texas metros, where it’s abundantly popular to tear down an old home when renovation is costly. Dallas is the biggest offender.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the housing market doesn’t appear to have dampened demand for the state’s first branded condo projects.

Satya is building Texas’ first standalone St. Regis condo project in Houston’s Rice Military neighborhood. Since opening the sales gallery in mid-September, the developer has logged $100 million in contracts. The most recent deal tops $2,000 per square foot. The rate outpaces luxury single-family homes in Houston, which usually fetch between $500 and $1,000 per square foot..

Here’s what else is going on in Texas real estate news:

Jon Venetos’ multifamily distress, which started in Florida, is permeating the Texas Triangle. Fannie Mae slapped Venetos’ Lurin Capital with a lawsuit accusing the firm of defaulting on a $77.2 million loan tied to Latitude 2976, a Houston apartment complex. The latest legal challenge for the firm comes two weeks after a Collin County judge granted the city of Plano a temporary restraining order against Lurin and ordered residents of Evana Grove Apartments to vacate due to unsafe conditions.

Harwood International’s financial unraveling has claimed another piece of its Dallas empire. The Uptown landlord handed back the keys to Harwood No. 1 at a foreclosure sale earlier this month. Oklahoma-based First United Bank took control of Harwood’s first development, a seven-story, 106,000-square-foot building at 2651 North Harwood Street, in a $27.2 million credit bid. It’s Harwood’s third building foreclosure this year and the second it’s handed back to a lender. As the firm struggles to stabilize its portfolio, it’s been offloading properties to San Francisco-based hedge fund TPG.

After narrowly surviving the last legislative session, Texas’ hemp industry has been dealt a potentially fatal blow in the bill to reopen the federal government. The federal spending bill contains a provision that drastically reduces the allowable THC content in hemp products. A ban could force the closure of thousands of businesses across the state, potentially leaving up to 17 million square feet of retail space vacant.

Legal challenges to EPIC City — the proposed master-planned community centered around a mosque — have fizzled out, and developer Community Capital Partners is turning a new leaf and adopting a new name. The 402-acre project spanning Collin and Hunt counties will now be known as The Meadow to “squash confusion” over whether the project intended to form its own municipality and to better reflect its “inclusive, family-centered” design.