Housing market shift: Austin forecasted to favor buyers over sellers

AUSTIN, Texas - A real estate website is projecting that the nationwide seller's market is cooling from its historic highs and that it's moving toward favoring buyers. This is especially good news for 15 of the 100 major housing markets, including Austin, Texas.

Knock.com uses its Buyer-Seller Market Index to measure the degree to which the nation's largest and most active housing markets favor buyers or sellers. The index combines six common housing market measures, covering six years of monthly data between January 2017 and July 2022. The index observes the trends and forecasts housing market conditions 12 months from now.

At the beginning of 2022, Knock.com says all markets favored sellers at historic levels. In June and July 2022, the market dipped below those historic peaks and moved toward buyers for the first time since May 2021.

What does this mean? Knock.com says this signals that while median sale prices have continued to rise across the nation, overall price growth has started to slow. At the same time, the number of homes sold and the likelihood a buyer will pay more than the list price are going down. The time it takes to sell a property and the inventory of homes available are also increasing.

Though most markets still favor sellers, Knock.com says that nearly all the 100 largest metropolitan area housing markets moved toward favoring buyers when compared to July 2021.

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Housing market in Austin

Knock.com says Austin, which also includes Round Rock and Georgetown, is currently a market that favors sellers but that by July 2023 that market will shift to buyers. Austin is projected to have the lowest sale-to-list ratio which means it's more likely sellers will be accepting a lower price than they listed their houses for.

The forecasted median sale price in Austin is expected to be $594,893 with the forecasted median days on market expected to be 21. The forecasted number of homes sold is around 1,213.

Austin is projected to be the 4th best market in the U.S. for buyers. Here's a look at the top 10 buyers markets in July 2023: