Smarter Moves.
Better Results.

The Austin metro — Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, and Caldwell counties — is leaning toward buyers right now, though it's edged back toward the middle over the past few weeks. We're at a composite score of -1.1 on the -3-to-+3 scale we use to track this, up from -1.5 last month. Buyers still have room to negotiate, just a little less of it than they did a month ago.

Here's what's behind it. About a third of homes that closed in July went for asking price or more, and homes that sold spent a little over two months on the market on average. Roughly 57% of everything currently on the market has had at least one price cut since listing — that's still a lot of negotiating leverage sitting out there. Supply-wise, there's about five months of inventory on hand at July's pace of sales, which puts this squarely in buyer's-market territory without being extreme.

Prices are basically flat. The median sold price dipped about 2.7% from June and is down less than half a percent from a year ago — not a meaningful move either direction. Nearly 2,850 residential properties closed across the metro in July. If you're buying, you've still got leverage; if you're selling, you need a sharp price from day one to compete.

You've still got leverage, just less of it than last month. About 57% of active listings have already had a price cut, so there's real room to negotiate on price or ask for closing-cost help. Homes are sitting for roughly two months before they sell, so you're not up against a countdown clock — take the time to find the right one instead of overpaying out of urgency that isn't really there.

Price it right the first time. Only about a third of homes are closing at or above asking, and more than half of your competition has already had to cut once — you don't want to join them. Lean on July's actual numbers rather than what things looked like a few months ago, and expect the search for your buyer to take a couple of months, not a couple of weeks.