Nearly one in five properties currently listed for sale in Texas on Zillow have had their price reduced by the homeowners or agent trying to offload it, according to the latest data available on the real estate marketplace’s website.
As of Thursday morning, there were a total of 176,773 properties (including single-family and multi-family homes, condos, lots of lands, etc.) listed for sale in Texas on Zillow. Of these, about 17 percent—a total of 29,693—had a price reduction.
A majority of the properties for sale were concentrated in the major metro areas of Fort Worth-Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Fort Worth had 2,569 homes for sale, 606 of which had a price reduction; Houston had 9,626 homes for sale, 1,904 of which had a price reduction. San Antonio had 8,827 homes for sale, 1,903 of which had their price reduced; Austin had a total of 3,596 homes listed for sale, of which 867 had a price reduction.
Newsweek reached out to Zillow, Texas Realtors and the National Association of Realtors for comment via email on Thursday morning.
Home prices in Texas skyrocketed during the pandemic as the U.S. housing market exploded. However, as of January 31, the latest data available on Zillow shows that the typical home value in Texas was $296,582—down 0.7 percent from a year earlier. The median list price as of the same date was $351,333.
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In the pandemic boomtown of Austin, the drop in prices has been even more dramatic: as of January 31, the average value of a home in the city was $525,545—7.2 percent down year-on-year, according to Zillow. In San Antonio, home prices were down 3 percent year-on-year, for an average value of $253,378.
In Houston, prices have gone modestly up from a year before. As of January 31, the average cost of a home in the city was $262,580. In Dallas, they have gone up by 0.6 percent, for an average value of $303,042.
As of December 31, 2023, 62.7 percent of homes in Texas were sold under the list price, and only 17 percent of sales were over the list price.
A drop in the asking prices of properties listed across Texas, as shown on Zillow, might be linked in part to the flooding of new homes on the market. While the rest of the country faces a lingering shortage of homes, Texas has been steadily growing its housing inventory, more than doubling the number of homes now available for sale compared to the pandemic years.
The increase in availability is due in part to Texas’s ability to build new homes, whereas other states, like California, have been incapable of doing so because of existing regulations. It is also due in part to the massive movement of people from other states—especially Californians and New Yorkers—to Texas, which characterized the pandemic years and contributed to climbing prices, which has since significantly slowed.
The number for 2023 building permits was 222,000, according to data from real estate data platform Reventure.
As Californians and New Yorkers likely head back to the office in their respective states, Texas finds itself with more homes for sale at a time when demand is diminishing.
“The surge in inventory, and associated decline in home prices that has started in some Texas metros, is great news for homebuyers across the state,” Reventure CEO Nick Gerli previously told Newsweek. “It means that the state is starting to become a buyer’s market. I wouldn’t be surprised if things continue to get better for Texas buyers in 2024, given the still-high levels of building permits.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.