Published March 4, 2026
Realtors see concessions, pricing gaps continue in the new year
With plenty of housing inventory and not enough interested buyers, Texas home sellers were the underdogs in the 2025 market. The start of this year is reflecting some of that — but that's not expected to be the case later in 2026. Texas Realtors' 2025 Homeselling Experience Report shows Realtors had to curb sellers' pricing hopes and encourage concessions, which rang especially true in the Austin metro.
Looking at sales from January to November, 75% of Realtors across the state said at least one client thought their home value was more than 10% higher than their agent's estimate. Only 7% of the optimistic sellers closed at elevated prices.
As early indicators signal a pickup in market activity for 2026, Texas Realtors Chairman Jennifer Wauhob said the data shouldn't be a cause for concern for agents and sellers. One positive point for sellers was 59% of recent sales had multiple offers on the table – a trend that has already picked up in the new year, Compass Realtor Amanda Trevino said.
High pricing expectations aren't new. Wauhob said that trend has carried since the "unprecedented" low interest rates and high demand environment from several years ago.
"(Austin) had such extreme price increases during the Covid rush," she said. "I know the Austin market has been particularly affected by these homes that are sitting longer."
First American's January 2026 home price index data shows the Austin metro's prices fell 2.2% year over year, with starter and mid-tier homes slumping by 2.8% and 2.9% respectively. Unlock MLS's January report found the average home in the metro closed at 91% of its list price, down from 92.3% in January 2025.
Hedging client expectations has carried into 2026 for Moreland Properties agent Greg Walling, who specializes in Austin luxury sales. His clients who bought before 2019 are "doing just fine" in the current market, he said on Jan. 29, but sellers who purchased their homes in the early 2020s are now pushing to list at those pandemic boom prices.
"(The pricing gap) is just a hard pill for some of those folks to swallow," he said. "That was the market at the time ... and now to get out of it, we're either gonna have to ride this wave for a while or sell (the house) at a loss."
Sellers are increasingly concerned about selling for less than they paid. About 33% of Texas sellers worried their home would sell at a loss, marking a 14% increase from 2024.
Trevino said some of her clients would rather take their homes off the market than "accept something less" than their listing price.
Concessions were the name of the home selling game as buyers gained the upper hand last year. Redfin data shows Austin's sellers outnumbered buyers 17,259 to 7,555 in December, and 57% of recent sales sat on the market for more than a month.
Only 7% of Realtors' most recent home sales ended with no concessions and sales above asking price. To close the deal, 52% of buyers made out with purchases below asking price and 45% of sales required buyer-requested repairs before closing. With buyers taking the reins in the 2025 market, Trevino said she's continued to tell her clients to expect repair requests before closing. In the past year, she said it's also "been a lot harder" to keep contracts from terminating during negotiations.
"(Buyers) really want perfection in the house they're buying," she said. "They have more power than they have had in previous markets, and they don't want to do work on the home."
Though this year poses a potential upturn, Wauhob said sellers should continue to lean on agents to cross the finish line. "Partnering with somebody who does this day in and day out can be really beneficial and save you from wasting a lot of time lingering on the market," she said.
This article originally appeared in the Austin Business Journal. To read the full artcle, click here.
