Last month's report ended on a question: was August's 6.4% drop in the median price a single soft month, or the start of a new leg down? Unlock MLS published the September numbers on October 13, 2026, and the answer is mostly the first. Prices recovered. What weakened instead was the number of homes changing hands.
Did Austin home prices keep falling in September?
No. The median sales price across the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro rose 1.4% year over year to $421,000, up from August's $412,000. That makes three positive months out of the last four, with August the exception. Within the city of Austin, the median rose 4.2% to $570,958.
The quarter as a whole was flatter than any single month suggests. For the third quarter of 2026, the metro median was $420,000, down 2.3% from the same quarter a year earlier, on 7,748 closed sales, down 2.4%.
Why did Austin home sales drop so sharply in September 2026?
Closed sales fell 14.8% to 2,223, and total dollar volume fell 10.4% to about $1.27 billion. Unlock MLS tied the slowdown to mortgage rates. Freddie Mac's weekly average for a 30-year fixed loan rose from 6.66% in late August to 7.03% by the last week of September, and stood at 7.40% on October 15, against 6.27% a year earlier.
Vaike O'Grady, research advisor at Unlock MLS, called the drop significant and said it shows how sensitive the market is to rates. In her reading, activity had been steady until the latest increase added another hurdle, especially for first-time buyers, because what most buyers are really shopping is the monthly payment, not the price tag.
“Buyers shop the monthly payment. When rates move, the payment moves, even if the price does not.”
Are pending sales still ahead of last year?
Not anymore. Last month's report noted that pending sales had stayed above the prior year for three straight months, but by a smaller margin each time: up 13.2% in June, 4.1% in July and 1.5% in August. In September that margin crossed zero. Metro pendings fell 1.8% to 2,313. The decline is small, and Unlock MLS read it as a sign that many buyers are staying engaged despite costlier loans, but it ends a three-month run of year-over-year gains.
Pendings were down in every core county. Travis County fell 3.1% to 1,043, Williamson County 3.4% to 784, and Hays County 1.8% to 323. Williamson, which led August with a 9.3% pending gain, gave that back.
How did Travis, Williamson and Hays counties compare?
They split on price. Travis County's median rose 2.6% to $497,400 on 1,031 sales, down 9.6%. Williamson County's median fell 2.5% to $395,000 on 765 sales, down 12.1%. Hays County's median jumped 10.8% to $399,900, but on only 294 sales, down 30.5%, which is a small enough base that one month's mix of homes can swing the median a long way.
Is Austin a buyer's or seller's market heading into winter?
Still balanced, and edging toward the buyer's side of balanced. Months of inventory rose for the third straight month, from 4.4 in June to 5.4 in September, though it is still down 0.1 from a year earlier. New listings rose 2.8% to 3,546 while active listings fell 3.4% to 13,465, so more sellers came to market than a year ago, while the overall stock of homes for sale was smaller.
The average close-to-list price was 92.7%, up from 91.4% in September 2025, the same measure that read 93.2% in August. Homes that do sell are closing nearer their asking price than they did a year ago, even as fewer sell.
What does this mean if you are buying or selling right now?
For sellers, the price story is steadier than the headlines, but the pool of buyers who can qualify at today's rates is smaller. Pricing to the current month matters more than ever: the homes that closed did so at better than 92% of list, and the ones that did not are adding to that 5.4 months of supply.
For buyers, a slower month means more time and more negotiating room, though not lower prices across the board. John Crowe, the 2026 Unlock MLS and ABoR president, said that every buyer and seller is in a different situation and that conditions vary by neighborhood, price point and home type. A metro median says little about any single street around Lake Travis, and the community pages on this site carry the local numbers.
The October report, due from Unlock MLS in mid-November, will be the first full month written at rates above 7%. It will show whether September's drop in sales was the rate shock arriving, or the rate shock passing through.