Austin, Texas, posted the steepest luxury home price decline of any U.S. metro in July, with its entry-level luxury threshold falling 9.6% year over year β more than three times the national pace β according to Realtor.com’s latest monthly luxury report.
Nationally, the price needed to enter the top 10% of the market β Realtor.com’s definition of the luxury tier β fell 2.7% year over year to $1,250,750 in July, the 28th straight month of annual decline. But Austin far outpaced that national drift, with its luxury entry point dropping to $1,262,726, and listings above $1 million down 17.8%, the second-steepest decline nationally behind San Francisco’s 20.9%.
Austin’s high-end tier (the top 5% of listings) fell 9.6% year over year, while its ultraluxury tier (the top 1%) declined 5.4%. The metro also posted the longest luxury median days on market nationally, at 78 days β up two days from a year earlier.
The other steepest decliners
Behind Austin, the ten metros with the steepest year-over-year luxury asking-price declines were Boston (-8.64%), San Francisco (-8.61%), San Diego (-7.3%), Washington, D.C. (-7.0%), San Jose (-6.9%), Oxnard, Calif. (-6.0%), Denver (-5.9%), Charleston, S.C. (-5.5%) and Bridgeport, Conn. (-5.5%).
Realtor.com noted the pullback follows Austin’s outsized run-up during the pandemic years, when historically low mortgage rates and buyers’ desire for more space and fewer restrictions drove rapid price appreciation across Texas markets.
On the ground: sellers meeting buyers halfway
“The pricing was grounded in data, and [sellers] wanted to make a deal work,” Austin-based Compass agent Michael Reisor told Realtor.com, describing increased seller flexibility at the $2 million-plus price point.
Reisor said much of the highest-end activity, above $5 million, trades off-market and doesn’t register in MLS-based statistics, meaning the reported declines may understate actual demand at the top of the market. He pointed to renewed interest tied to SpaceX’s Bastrop County facility, roughly 45 minutes from Austin, as a source of move-up buying even as broader luxury prices soften. “We’re seeing people say, ‘We already live in a $2.5 million house in Tarrytown, now let’s move to a $5 million house,'” he said.
What it means
Verified facts: Realtor.com’s monthly luxury report shows Austin’s luxury price tiers falling faster than any other tracked metro in July, with the national luxury entry price down for a 28th consecutive month even as days on market shortened year over year across all luxury tiers.
Attributed interpretation: Reisor attributes the market’s relative stability at the very top end to sellers’ willingness to negotiate and to demand tied to specific employers like SpaceX, rather than to broader market weakness.
RealtyWire analysis: Austin’s correction is best read as a normalization after an unusually sharp pandemic-era run-up rather than a broad indictment of the market β the metro still commands a seven-figure luxury threshold. The gap between MLS-recorded price declines and Reisor’s account of steady off-market demand above $5 million is a reminder that national luxury data can understate activity in markets where high-end deals frequently happen outside public listing systems.
What to watch
Realtor.com’s next monthly luxury report, covering August data, will show whether Austin’s decline is stabilizing or continuing to widen the gap with the national luxury market, which has now posted more than two straight years of annual price softening.
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