Texas, once one of the country’s go-to stories for red-hot real estate, is suddenly the coldest market in a new national ranking, with five major metros stuck among the weakest in the United States. Austin, the former boomtown poster child, now finds itself near the very bottom for large cities, a sharp reversal that could shake up spring listings and bargaining power across the state.
According to Construction Coverage’s updated Hottest Real Estate Markets study, Texas posted a composite score of 7.3, the lowest of any state in the analysis. The report pins the cooldown on a mix of rapid pandemic-era price run-ups, higher mortgage rates, and return-to-office trends that are taking some of the shine off certain Texas metros.
As reported by the Houston Chronicle, Austin ranked 51st out of 52 large U.S. cities with a composite score of 17.2, making it the second-weakest large-city market in the study. San Antonio landed at 48th, Fort Worth at 44th, Arlington at 40th, and Houston at 39th, which collectively puts five Texas cities in the bottom 15 nationally.
How The Ranking Works
Construction Coverage built its composite score by equally weighting five indicators sourced from Redfin data: one-year change in median sale price, the share of homes sold above asking price, median days on market, average sale-to-list percentage, and the share of listings with price drops. The methodology covers more than 800 cities and all 50 states to highlight which markets are heating up and which are cooling off.
Redfin Numbers Show The Chill On The Ground
Recent metro-level snapshots from Redfin back up the story that Austin has hit the brakes. The city is among the metros with the steepest year-over-year price declines and noticeably longer selling timelines. February data cited an approximate 2.7% drop in Austin’s median sale price and a median days-on-market figure near 91 days…