Texas housing market activity slowed in August as the market moved beyond the peak summer selling season and mortgage rates trended higher. Rising Treasury yields and rising inflation pushed mortgage rates upward during the month, impacting buyers already confronting affordability issues. While August’s pullback also reflects a typical seasonal cooling, higher financing costs likely amplified the slowdown. Year to date (YTD), sales remain modestly ahead of last year’s, but the lead is expected to narrow in the coming months as mortgage rates have climbed further since August.
Statewide, new listing activity largely tracked last year’s pace through August, suggesting that homeowners remain willing to enter the market despite slower sales. However, conditions vary across major metropolitan areas. DFW stands out as the weakest large market on the supply side, with new listing volumes remaining soft since April and YTD activity trailing last year’s levels. In contrast, seller participation in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio has remained comparatively stable.
Active inventory, which expanded steadily throughout the spring and summer, began its normal seasonal decline in August. Even so, inventory levels remain broadly stable and elevated. While some buyers may have been able to take advantage of inventory availability and large seller price concessions, ongoing affordability challenges continue to limit many buyers from fully benefiting from these conditions. Meanwhile, measures such as days on market and inventory turnover suggest that the pace of sales activity remained broadly similar to that of a year ago.
Price trends continue to show encouraging signs of stabilization. After more than a year of modest annual declines, statewide home prices were essentially flat in August, breaking a 15-month streak of downward pressures. The moderation in price declines reflects a market that is gradually finding better footing as inventory conditions normalize. Conditions remain somewhat uneven across metros, but overall pricing trends suggest easing downward pricing pressures. Prices in Houston and Fort Worth have trended slightly higher in recent months.
Looking ahead, housing activity is likely to remain restrained and could slow further through the remainder of the year. Mortgage rates have climbed back above 7 percent, a threshold that previously weighed heavily on buyers and sellers during the 2023 market downturn. September inflation data suggests overall cost-of-living price pressures remain persistent and rising, raising concerns that interest rates may stay elevated for longer. That means affordability challenges are likely to intensify, creating additional headwinds for home sales and overall housing market activity.
Disclaimer: The August 2026 figures are based on more complete data and have been revised from their initial release.
Sales Activity Drops But Holds Year-to-Date Lead
Table 1: August 2026 State & National Sales
Notes: The sales numbers reflect actual sales, not the seasonally adjusted rate.
Source: Texas REALTORS® and National Association of REALTORS® data (accessed at Haver Analytics)
- Statewide, Texas recorded 28,740 closed sales in August, down 4.7 year-over-year (YoY). Despite the August pullback, YTD sales remained 2.1 percent above the same period last year.
- Across the major metros, sales slowed in DFW and Houston, declining 11 percent and 5.7 percent YoY, respectively. Austin and San Antonio continued to post YoY gains through August, although growth has moderated from earlier months. On a YTD basis, sales remain ahead of last year’s pace in Austin (+7.8 percent), San Antonio (+1.6 percent), and DFW (+0.9 percent), while Houston trails (-1.2 percent).
- Texas’ median sales price was $330,000 in August, down slightly from $339,000 in July and $335,000 a year ago.
- Nationally, seasonally unadjusted existing home sales totaled 363,000 in August, down 3.5 percent YoY. However, national sales remained 1.6 percent above last year’s pace on a YTD basis. The median existing home price continued to rise, up 1.7 percent from a year ago to reach $434,800.
- Pending sales point to continued softness in near-term sales activity. Texas pending sales were down 1.1 percent YoY in August.
Monthly Market Snapshot: August Sales and Inventory Trends
Table 2: Texas Housing Market Indicators
Notes: The turnover rate is calculated as pending sales divided by inventory, where inventory is the average of month-beginning and month-ending inventory.
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
- Homes sold in August spent an average of 65 days on the market (DoM), similar to a year ago when they spent 63 days on the market.
- Inventory turnover remained unchanged from a year ago at 18.4 percent. At this pace, fewer than one in five homes on the market went under contract during the month.
- The median seller price cut remained elevated at $14,900, equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the initial listing price. Price reductions have ticked up since the peak summer selling season, reflecting greater seller concessions as market activity cools entering the fall and winter months.
- As of August, active inventory is at 5.3 months. Unsold inventory has an average DoM of 95 days, compared to 65 days for sold inventory.
Seasonal Slowdown in New Listing Activity
Figure 1: Monthly New-Listing Activity, 2026
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
- Statewide, 48,600 new listings entered the market in August, down 12.8 percent from July, consistent with seasonal slowdown between July and August.
- August’s new listings were 1.9 percent below year-ago levels, while YTD listing activity remained relatively stable, down just 0.4 percent through the first eight months of the year.
- Among the major metros, all experienced a seasonal slowdown in new listing activity, but the pullback was most pronounced in DFW, where new listing volume has remained subdued since April.
- In Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, YTD new listing activity has remained relatively stable through August.
Inventory Contracts After Summer Build-Up
Figure 2: Month-End Active Inventory, 2026
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
- Statewide, active inventory is starting to recede after a spring and summer build-up, reflecting a typical seasonal inventory trend.
- As of August month-end, active inventory was down 2.5 percent to 151,400, after peaking at 155,300 in July. August-end inventory stood at a 5.3-month supply.
- YoY, August’ month-end active inventory trails 1.8 percent from year-ago levels.
- Inventory conditions varied across the major metropolitan areas (see Table 4). Notably in DFW, active listings declined 4 percent between July and August, leaving month-end inventory at 5.9 percent below year-ago levels.
- Meanwhile, inventory was more stable in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio through August.
Texas Home Prices Continue to Stabilize with Regional Differences
Figure 3: Texas HPI: Texas and Regional Home Price Trends
Note: The year-over-year change in the price index is calculated using a three-month moving average ending in the report month.
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
- Statewide, Texas home prices continued to stabilize. In August, annual price growth was flat, breaking a 15-month stretch of YoY price declines.
- Regionally, Austin and San Antonio continued to see easing downward pricing pressures. Although home prices remained below year-ago levels, the pace of decline moderated further.
- Price performance continued to diverge within the DFW area. Fort Worth recorded its fourth straight month of modest YoY increases, posting a 0.6 percent gain in August after increases of 1.3 percent in June and 0.9 percent in July. In contrast, Dallas continued to see mild price softening, with annual declines nearing 1 percent.
- Prices in Houston continue to hold steady, increasing 0.7 percent YoY in August after posting a small positive gain in July.
Local Housing Market Indicators
Table 3: Metro-Level Home Sales, August 2026
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
Table 4: Metro-Level Month-End Inventory, August 2026
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of Data Relevance Project and Texas REALTORS® data
Table 5: Single-Family Housing Permits, August 2026
Note: Permit value is builder estimated construction cost of the residential structure, not including land acquisition cost.
Source: Survey of New Construction of U.S. Census Bureau
Source: Texas Housing Insight | October 2026 | Texas Real Estate Research Center (written by Yanling Mayer)
