Austin Real Estate Market 2026: Score 18, What the Data Shows

Austin has one of the strongest labor markets of any major U.S. metro. Unemployment sits at 3.2%. Median household income is $97,638. The metro added over 400,000 residents in the decade leading to 2023.

PropertyIQ scores Austin an 18 out of 100 as of February 28, 2026. That is an F.

The gap between Austin's economic fundamentals and its PropertyIQ score tells the story of what happens when a construction boom overshoots demand.

The Score

A score of 18 means the market strongly favors buyers. Supply far exceeds demand, homes are sitting, and sellers are cutting prices. The score is not a judgment on Austin's long-term prospects. It is a measurement of current market conditions relative to supply and demand balance.

Austin has held this score for over a year. The high point in the past 20 months was 30, in April 2025. The low point was 11, in September 2025. The market has not climbed above 30 in this entire window.

| Month | Score | |-------|-------| | April 2025 | 30 (recent high) | | September 2025 | 11 (recent low) | | December 2025 | 12 | | January 2026 | 15 | | February 2026 | 18 |

The trend is slightly up from the September low, but the market remains in deep buyer territory.

Current Market Conditions

The median listing price in Austin is $455,000 as of February 1, 2026. The Zillow median home value is approximately $426,643 as of January 31, 2026.

Home values are down 8.82% year over year as of February 2026. Month over month, values were flat. The five-year appreciation figure is 1.34%, meaning the entire pandemic-era boom has essentially been corrected away.

The Supply Picture

Austin has 9,072 homes for sale as of February 1, 2026. That is substantial for a metro of 2.4 million.

Inventory is up 14.77% year over year. New listings are also rising, up 8.04% year over year. Supply is not tightening.

New construction is a key driver. Austin recorded 711 new construction home sales in November 2025 alone. That pipeline has continued to feed supply into a market where absorption has not kept pace.

Price cuts affect 20.01% of all listings as of February 2026. Sellers are accepting 97.45% of their asking price as of November 2025, one of the largest discounts from list of any major metro in this dataset.

Days on market average 76 as of February 2026. For context, San Diego averages 38, Philadelphia averages 53, and Los Angeles averages 44.

The Demand Side

The demand score for Austin is 6.35 out of 100 as of February 2026. The hotness score is 18.23. Despite the labor market and income levels that should support demand, buyers are not absorbing the available inventory at a pace that tightens conditions.

The pending ratio is 0.3715: for every 100 active listings, 37 are under contract. That reading reflects a market where listings are accumulating faster than they are being absorbed.

Home sales are up 8.12% year over year as of February 2026. The increase in sales volume has not been sufficient to draw down the inventory overhang.

Zillow Forecast and What It Means

Zillow forecasts -2.0% near-term price change in Austin as of December 2025. That is a negative forecast for a metro with strong employment and income fundamentals.

The driver is supply. Austin permitted and built aggressively from 2020 through 2024. The homes are built and listed. Until that supply is absorbed, the score will remain in the bottom quartile.

Austin vs. Texas Peers

Houston scores 32 as of February 2026 — also a buyer's market, but measurably higher than Austin's 18. San Antonio has shown more supply discipline.

The Texas metros that benefited most from the 2020-2022 migration boom are also the ones showing the sharpest post-boom corrections. Austin attracted the most attention and the most construction. It is absorbing the consequences of both.

The Overvaluation Reading

Austin is 22.8% overvalued relative to income fundamentals as of February 2026. That is one of the lower overvaluation readings in the dataset, reflecting how far prices have already corrected.

The income needed to purchase a median-priced home in Austin is $120,937. With a metro median income of $97,638, the gap is real but not extreme by major metro standards. The affordability is improving as prices decline.

What the Data Shows

A score of 18 in Austin reflects a specific condition: exceptional economic fundamentals in a market temporarily overwhelmed by supply. The labor market is intact. Population growth continues. The construction boom that drove the score down will eventually be absorbed.

As of February 2026, that absorption has not yet happened in a way the data can measure. The score is 18.

PropertyIQ score as of February 28, 2026. Listing and inventory data as of February 1, 2026. Zillow home value data as of January 31, 2026. Sale-to-list data as of November 30, 2025. Forecast data as of December 2025. Census data as of 2023. Economic data as of December 2025. All data for informational purposes only.