The median Austin metro home sold for $410,000 in August 2026, down 23.8 percent from the May 2022 peak of $538,000. Inside the city limits, the median landed at $560,000, down 17.6 percent from $680,000.
If you set your price off what the house down the street got in 2022, you’ve found most of your problem.
Austin fell harder than almost any large metro in the country. Sellers who bought or refinanced during the boom still carry a number in their head, and buyers stopped paying that number three years ago. Buyers here read the same price history you do.
So the first job is figuring out which problem you own. Price, condition, and marketing each leave a different fingerprint on your listing data, and you can read all three in about 15 minutes.
How Many Days Should Your Austin House Take to Sell?
About 52 days inside the city and about 76 across the metro. A clean, correctly priced Austin house should be under contract inside two months, and anything past 90 days without an offer means something is off.
Those two figures come from different sources. Redfin put Austin’s median days on market at 52 in July 2026, and Unlock MLS reported 76 days for the metro in June. Both are right. They count different houses.
Redfin measures city listings in its own dataset and stops the clock at pending. The MLS number covers the five-county metro, including outlying areas where houses take longer to move. Selling in 78704 or 78745? The 52-day figure is closer to your reality. Selling in Manor, Kyle, or Leander? Plan around 76 days, and possibly more.
Pick the right clock and hold yourself to it. At day 30 with no offer, something’s broken. Waiting until day 60 to react costs you the same reduction you were going to take anyway, plus two more months of taxes and interest.
A 15-minute diagnosis using your own listing data
How many showings have you had so far? Look at your Zillow views, and save those numbers. Then, find your row below:
| What you see | What it usually means | First move |
|---|---|---|
| 8 or more showings, zero offers after 3 weeks | Price is close. Something inside the house kills it during the walkthrough | Ask your agent for the objection buyers repeat, then fix that one thing |
| Under 5 showings in 3 weeks | You're priced above the search band buyers use | Cut into the band below yours |
| Strong Zillow views, few showings | Lead photo and the first three lines of the description | Reshoot the exterior, rewrite the opening |
| Low views and low saves | Wrong band plus a stale listing | Reduce and refresh on the same day |
| Offers landing 8 to 12 percent under list | Buyers agree with each other about your value | Counter with data, don't relist |
If you read that last row and felt defensive, I get it. But when three unrelated buyers all come in around the same number, they’ve done your appraisal for you. Take the hint before the fourth one comes in lower.
How Much to Lower Your Price on an Austin House That Isn't Selling
Enough to land in the next search band down. In most of Austin that’s a $16,000 to $25,000 cut, taken all at once. Under $600,000, buyers filter in $25,000 steps. Above it, $50,000 steps.
So a house listed at $615,000 never shows up for anyone searching to $600,000, however good the photos are. Drop it to $599,000 and a whole new pool of buyers sees it for the first time. A $5,000 trim reaches nobody new. All it does is tell the people already watching that you’ll keep moving, so they wait.
You might be thinking the 3 percent buyers already negotiate off asking counts as your reduction. It doesn’t. Sold-to-list ran 97.4 percent in July per Redfin and 97.7 percent metro-wide per Unlock MLS in June, so every seller in Austin gives up that 3 percent. Your cut sits on top of it.
Cut and refresh together, same day. New lead photo, rewritten first 160 characters, new open house on the calendar. A price drop by itself reads as desperation. A price drop with a new hero shot reads as a relaunch.
One more thing about timing. Austin months of inventory hit 4.8 in June 2026, up 37.1 percent from 3.5 a year earlier. More competing listings means your reduction has to be decisive enough to stand out from the other houses that also just reduced.
Repairs That Stop an Austin House From Selling (and Which to Fix First)
Fix whatever blocks the buyer’s loan or insurance first. Then whatever makes them picture a five-figure bill. Cosmetic stuff comes last, if at all.
In Austin that order almost always works out the same way, because our houses fail inspections for local reasons. A checklist written for Chicago won’t help you here.
Aluminum branch wiring goes first. If your house went up between about 1965 and 1973, there’s a decent chance it has it. Plenty of insurers won’t write a policy until it’s remediated, and no policy means no loan. This one tends to surface around day 25 and end a deal that was otherwise done. A licensed electrician can quote the fix in an afternoon.
Then foundation. Central Texas clay swells when it rains and shrinks when it doesn’t, and slab homes from the 70s and 80s show it in door frames that stick and drywall corners that crack. Buyers see a hairline and picture $40,000. A structural engineer’s letter runs a few hundred dollars and replaces their imagination with a real number. Skip it and they’ll assume the worst one.
HVAC is third, and it’s more about age than whether it runs. We get 100-degree days from June into September, so a 15-year-old system reads to a buyer as a $12,000 bill they’ll be paying by next July. Service records take some of the edge off. Past 18 years, just replace it. You’ll get most of the money back in the negotiation and you’ll stop losing buyers over it.
Wood rot last, but don’t skip it. Fascia boards and window trim rot fast here, and it’s the first thing a buyer sees walking up the driveway. Cheap to fix. It tells them you kept up the house before they’ve opened the front door.
Kitchen and bath updates? Only if something’s broken. In this market you won’t get the money back.
How Much Does It Cost to Keep a House That Won't Sell in Austin?
About $2,700 a month on a median city home, before you spend a dollar on repairs. Take a $560,000 house with a $300,000 mortgage balance and a typical Travis County tax bill. Two extra months on market runs about $5,400. Four runs about $10,900.
Most of that is taxes, and that’s the part people underestimate. Travis County effective rates run 1.8 to 2.5 percent, and the median Austin bill sits near $8,172 a year. So you’re paying roughly $930 a month just to hold the house, and so is the buyer looking at it. Add the 6.71 percent 30-year rate Freddie Mac posted on September 3, 2026, and a buyer with 20 percent down is looking at close to $3,800 a month before insurance. That combination is what shrinks your buyer pool, and no staging fixes it.
Some things about the house itself work the same way. A lot backing I-35, a creek bottom that floods, a school zone parents route around. Each one carries a discount that’s real and permanent, and buyers price it in whether you acknowledge it or not.
So run the comparison before your next decision. Four more months of waiting costs about $10,900. The price cut you’ve been resisting is probably in the same range. One of those buys you a closing date.
What to Do If Your House Isn't Selling in Austin
Relist, cut the price, rent it, finance the buyer yourself, or take a cash offer. On a $560,000 Austin house the net ranges from about $490,000 to about $518,000, and the closing date ranges from two weeks to never.
Your numbers will differ. Treat the middle column as a shape, and plug in your own balance and tax bill before you decide anything.
| Option | Time to close | What you net on $560,000 | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relist with a new agent | 60 to 90 days | ~$518,000 after 5 to 6 percent commission and 2 percent closing costs | Another full season of showings, and buyers can see your price history |
| Cut into the band below | 30 to 45 days | ~$500,000 | Works fast when price is the real problem. Does nothing if condition is |
| Rent it out | 30 days to a signed lease | Depends on your payment | Run your actual payment against a current rent comp before you assume it covers. You still owe the taxes, and you're a landlord now |
| Seller finance or lease-purchase | 30 to 60 days | Full price, collected over years | Default risk sits with you, and the property stays on your balance sheet |
| Cash offer, as-is | 7 to 21 days | ~$490,000, or 10 to 15 percent under repaired retail, with no commission and no repair credits | You trade price for a closing date you choose |
The relist row looks like the winner until you add what it costs to get there. Two to three more months of payments and taxes runs $5,400 to $8,100, and buyers will still negotiate repair credits after inspection. Subtract those and the distance between relisting and a cash offer shrinks to $15,000 to $20,000 on this house. Whether that is worth 90 days of showings is your call.
One thing in your favor on the relist row. Since the 2024 NAR settlement changed how buyer-side pay works, commission is negotiable in Austin. Ask. Plenty of agents here now list at 4.5 to 5 percent total.
When a Cash Offer Makes Sense for an Austin Seller (and When It Doesn't)
It makes sense when the closing date is worth more to you than the last 10 to 15 percent.
Start with what you’re giving up. A cash buyer pays under retail, and any company that tells you otherwise wants something from you. What you get for that discount is a date you pick, a house you don’t have to fix or show, and no commission. You also skip the part where a financed buyer’s lender reprices at day 25 and the deal falls apart.
So who’s in the spot where that trade pays off? Someone paying taxes on two houses after an inheritance. Someone with a foreclosure date on the calendar who needs the equity out before it. A couple in a divorce who need one number and one date so they can stop talking about the house. I’d also put a repair list you can’t fund in there, along with a job relocation that gave you 30 days and a house that’s already expired off the MLS twice.
And who should walk away from a cash offer? Anyone with a decent house in a strong zip whose only problem is a $15,000 price cut they haven’t made yet. Make the cut. Anyone with six months and no payment pressure, because six months is enough time to sell the normal way. Anyone looking at an offer with fees tucked under the headline number, or a buyer who wants a long inspection window before committing to a price (that second one is a wholesaler shopping your contract to other investors, and you’ll never close with them).
If you do go this route, get two or three offers and read past the big number. Compare the net to you after fees and the closing date each one commits to. A real cash buyer sends proof of funds before you ask and holds the number after walking the property. Anyone who reprices after the walkthrough was never offering you that price.
Common Questions From Austin Sellers
Is 60 days on the market too long in Austin?
Inside the city, yes. The median is 52, so at day 60 you’re past half the houses that sold. Out in the metro, where the median runs 76, day 60 is still normal. Either way, 30 days with no offer is the point to examine your price.
My neighbor's house sold in two weeks. Why is mine sitting?
Compare the two listings side by side before assuming the market changed between them. Nine times out of 10 the difference is the lead photo, the price band, or a condition item that shows up on the walkthrough. Pull their sold price per square foot against your list price per square foot. That single comparison answers it more often than any other check.
Should I reduce now or wait for spring?
Spring brings more buyers to Austin. It also brings more competing listings, and inventory already sits at 4.8 months. Waiting runs roughly $2,700 a month on a median city home. The spring bump has to beat that number plus the reduction you’d take today.
How much do cash home buyers pay in Austin?
Most offers are 5% to 15% under repaired MLS value. Against that, subtract what the listing path costs you. Commission runs 5 to 6 percent and closing costs another 1 to 2 percent. Add the repair credits buyers negotiate after inspection, plus two to three months of taxes and payments. The distance between the two paths is usually smaller than the headline discount suggests.
Can I sell a house with foundation problems in Austin?
Yes, and it happens constantly here. A financed buyer will want an engineer’s report and often a repair credit. A cash buyer will price the repair in and close anyway. Get the engineer’s letter either way, since knowing the actual number protects you from the buyer’s imagination.
