Price-Change Activity Skews Heavily Toward Drops
Of all the weekly list-price changes that happened across active inventory this past week, 92% were price decreases and the balance were increases. That ratio was 82% three weeks ago, and we have not seen it this skewed to the downside since October. This is a flow measure, not a stock measure. It describes the direction sellers are moving their prices when they move them at all, not the share of total inventory that has reduced. The stock measure is separate and sits at 46.5% of all active listings having taken at least one price drop.
The message behind the flow number is straightforward: buyers are re-engaging, but a portion of sellers are still pricing above what this market will support. Buyers are not being rushed into bad decisions by headlines about tightening inventory, because across most of the metro this is a balanced market, and they know another comparable home is right behind the one they are looking at today.
Where the market is different is at the zip-code level. 78739 in Southwest Austin is hot, along with two other zip codes scoring in the top bucket of our composite score. If you are writing offers there, the 2021 and 2022 playbook is back on the table: offers over list, and in some cases waiving the appraisal contingency in TREC paragraph 8 to get the deal done. Hyperlocal is the only lens that works right now.
The Bifurcation Has Reversed
Last year, Austin's top 25th percentile of sold homes propped up the average sold price. This year the opposite is happening. Over the most recent 30-day sold window, the top 25th percentile is down 5.4% year over year, while the bottom 25th percentile is down only 3.1%. The top tier is taking more of the pricing pressure. That is why the average sold price is off 1.6% year over year at $573,223, and the median sold price for April is essentially flat at $445,000.
From the May 2022 peak, the average is down 15.94% and the median is down 19.09%. If April 2026 turns out to be the floor, it would take roughly 57 months of the 25-year compound appreciation rate of 4.74% to return to the $551,209 peak median.
Where Appreciation Still Lives
Eight cities are up year over year on median sold price: Bastrop, Burnet, Dale, Lago Vista, Liberty Hill, Manor, Smithville, and Wimberley. Every one of them sits on the outer edge of the metro. The core is doing the opposite. The city of Austin median is down 4.4% year to date. The hardest-hit cities so far this year are Marble Falls at -17.8%, Lockhart at -10.9%, San Marcos at -9.7%, and Elgin at -8.7%.
78705 Is the Market You Walk Away From
Our composite score blends activity index, absorption rate, days on market, and sellers per buyer into a single 0 to 100 reading, and it flagged exactly one cold zip code this cycle: 78705, the West Campus and central UT area, at 12.7 sellers per available buyer. That is the only "cold" classification across 75 zip codes. Unless a seller there is willing to price at least 20% below the lowest comparable active listing, taking that listing is not worth the marketing dollars. Three zip codes are hot, four are warm, 44 are balanced, and 23 are cool.
The Absorption Rate Flipped Positive
March's final absorption rate, sold divided by active, closed at 21.47%, and that outperformed March 2025. That is the first month this year we have beaten the prior year on absorption. January and February both underperformed. April is tracking to outperform as well. The market flow score for March came in at 4.96, right on the long-run median and a meaningful step up from the sub-5 readings we have been printing.
Rates and the Bond Market
Rates held steady over the weekend. Conventional 30-year is at 6.375% and FHA 30-year is at 5.875%. The bond market had a rough Thursday on April 16, then rallied Friday when Iran signaled it intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A disabled container ship in the region briefly pushed oil futures up 7%, but the rate side absorbed it cleanly. Favorable conditions going into the week, and that matters because affordability gains are doing real work in bringing buyers back to the table.
