Home sellers outnumber buyers across every major Texas metro this summer, giving buyers the strongest negotiating leverage the state has seen in years, according to new research from Redfin published Aug. 24, 2026. Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth all rank as buyer’s markets, with Houston posting the widest seller-buyer gap of any major metro in the state.
Redfin ranked the five metros by how much sellers outnumber buyers as of July, using proprietary data on the typical time from a buyer’s first tour to closing, paired with MLS data on active listings and pending sales. A market is a buyer’s market when sellers outnumber buyers by more than 10%.
Houston Leads, With Sellers Nearly 130% More Numerous Than Buyers
Houston topped the list, with sellers outnumbering buyers by 129.8% in July. The metro’s median sale price was $343,929, up just 1.2% year over year. San Antonio ranked second at 116.3%, with a median sale price of $320,243 (up 3.3%). Austin followed at 111.9% ($438,634, up 1.8%), Dallas at 99% ($416,702, down 0.8%) and Fort Worth at 85.7% ($359,199, down 0.2%).
Celeste Taylor-Velasco, a Redfin principal agent in Houston, said sellers are increasingly making concessions to keep deals together. In one recent transaction, her seller cut the price by $20,000 on a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom house β and even after the price drop, the buyer asked the seller to cover closing costs and split the cost of a new roof. “We were able to find a solution that worked for both sides and kept the sale together,” she said.
Taylor-Velasco said Houston sellers are also competing directly with builders offering incentives like reduced rates and home warranties on new construction. Rising insurance costs tied to storm and flood risk are compounding the pressure on buyers in Houston and nearby Galveston, fellow Houston agent Jamie Derouen said. “Buyers are dealing with significantly higher insurance costs and interest rates since 2019,” Taylor-Velasco said. “When you combine those higher carrying costs with elevated interest rates and a large amount of available inventory, sellers are having to be much more patient, or much more flexible on price and terms.” Redfin pegged late September as the best window for Houston buyers to land a deal.
San Antonio and Austin Sellers Adjust to a Buyer’s Market
In San Antonio, buyers are winning many of the concessions they ask for, including help with closing costs and upgrades, agent Jessica Uralde said. She recently represented a seller who agreed to pay $18,000 in closing costs on a three-bedroom home that sold for $399,900. “Builders are going to give you the sun, moon and the stars right now, which is especially great for first-time homebuyers,” Uralde said, though she cautioned that well-priced, move-in-ready listings can still sell quickly. Some San Antonio sellers are getting creative: agent Derrell Skillman pointed to a listing offering an assumable VA loan carrying a 2.5% interest rate. “Since we are a military city, assumptions are very attractive to our military personnel,” he said. Redfin identified mid-September as San Antonio’s best window for buyers.
Austin has swung from a pandemic-era seller’s frenzy to a full buyer’s market, agent Monica DiSchiano said. “Sellers are pricing competitively and letting go of home prices from 2021. Buyers are reciprocating and responding by house hunting and making offers again,” she said. Fellow Austin agent Barb Cooper said sellers are quicker than ever to cut prices when a listing stalls: “Most sellers now understand it’s a buyer’s market and are pricing accordingly.”
Dallas and Fort Worth Still Have Pockets of Seller Strength
Even in a buyer’s market, some neighborhoods still favor sellers. Dallas agent Abby Keyes said she recently helped two buyers into bidding wars in nearby Plano, where one home sold just above its $350,000 asking price and another sold at its full $650,000 asking price. “There are some hot pockets like Plano,” Keyes said. “If the house is priced correctly and doesn’t need any repairs, we’re seeing multiple offers.”
In Fort Worth, agent Amanda Peterson negotiated an unusual trade: her clients swapped their four-bedroom home directly for a newer four-bedroom, five-bathroom house after the seller agreed to buy their existing property. “It’s a total unicorn type of transaction,” Peterson said. “This illustrates the leverage buyers have in this market.” Redfin pegged mid-September as the best time to find a deal in both Dallas and Fort Worth.
What It Means
The data confirms what RealtyWire has previously reported: Texas is leading the national pullback in home sales, and the state’s biggest metros have flipped decisively toward buyers after years of rapid price growth. Redfin’s own separate research on seasonal discount timing similarly points to late summer and early fall as the softest stretch of the year for sellers nationally, reinforcing the September timing the Texas agents cited.
The rankings are RealtyWire’s characterization of Redfin’s proprietary buyer-seller ratio; the underlying estimates are seasonally adjusted and subject to revision, per Redfin’s methodology.
