Central Texas sellers are coming to terms with buyer leverage.
As fall began, sellers in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area entered the market more cautiously and accepted deeper price cuts, according to Unlock MLS.
September brought the lowest close-to-list price ratio this year at 91.6 percent, along with the narrowest year-over-year increase in active listings.
There were 10 percent more homes for sale last month than in September 2024, compared to a 13 percent year-over-year increase in August and a peak increase this year of 19.7 percent in April.
Despite the deceleration, fall has its music, too, as the poem goes. Closings increased 6.7 last month compared to a year ago, the broadest jump so far this year. That metric lagged behind 2024 for most of the year; before September, only January and June had year-over-year increases.
Concurrently, sales volume increased 5.6 percent year over year to $1.3 billion, making September the only month besides June to exceed the previous year’s volume.
“It’s the strongest sales growth we’ve seen in 2025,” said Brandy Wuensch, CEO of Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of Realtors.
Inventory growth is slowing, and parties are negotiating lower deals.
“Buyers are returning to the market, they’re gaining confidence, knowing that they have more negotiating power. And sellers are also understanding that, if they want to move, they need to be flexible in negotiating in these terms,” Wuensch said.
While some agents say the Austin area has become a buyer’s market, Wuensch considers it a balanced market.
“When we see our inventory go over six months, that’s where you’re in a true buyer’s market,” Wuensch said.
The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area has exceeded six months of inventory just once this year, reaching 6.1 in July. September had 5.7 months of inventory, a year-over-year increase of 0.6 and a month-over-month decline of 0.2.
Sellers weren’t eager to enter the market. New listings in September trailed last year for the second month in a row, decreasing year over year by 5.7 percent. That’s the widest negative margin all year, and a thorough correction from July, when new listings increased by 13.4 percent year over year.
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