Austin's Median Home Price Fell 9.8% This Year — But a Different Government Metric Says It's Flat

According to ATX Things' analysis of the latest FRED data for the Austin, Texas metro (as of August 1, 2026), the median home listing price fell 9.8% year-over-year to $450,000 — but the House Price Index, a separate FRED series that tracks repeat sales of the same homes, is essentially flat, up just 0.3% over the same period. Unemployment climbed across every core county, and building permits fell even as construction employment kept growing.

Why Are Two Government Numbers Telling Different Stories About Austin Home Prices?

The metro's median home listing price dropped to $450,000 in August 2026, down 9.8% from a comparable listing roughly $499,000 a year earlier — a real, calculable difference of about $49,000. That's the number that shows up in most headlines, including our own August report.

But FRED also tracks a second measure: the House Price Index, which follows repeat sales of the same homes over time rather than whatever happens to be listed in a given month. That index is up just 0.3% year-over-year — effectively flat. The gap between the two isn't a contradiction; it's a difference in what each series measures. A falling median listing price can reflect more affordable homes coming onto the market, sellers repricing, or a shift in which price tiers are moving — not necessarily that any individual homeowner's house lost a tenth of its value. Homes are also moving faster: the median days on market fell to 73, down 7.6% year-over-year, even as active listings (12,517) held roughly flat.

Population isn't tracked in this dataset's Austin metro row — FRED's population series for this metro wasn't available at the time of this pull, so we're not stating a figure we can't verify.

Is Austin's Unemployment Rate Still Rising?

Yes, across the whole metro and every core county. The Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown MSA's unemployment rate sat at 4.0% in July 2026, up four-tenths of a point from 3.6% a year earlier. It's part of a climb from a recent low of 3.2% in December 2025 to a peak of 4.1% in June 2026, before ticking down slightly to July's 4.0%.

That climb isn't concentrated in one county — it's broad-based:

How Does Austin Compare to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio?

Full metro-level data (unemployment, home prices, GDP) is only tracked for the Austin MSA in our dataset right now, so a direct metro-to-metro table isn't possible this month. But FRED does track county-level unemployment for the core county anchoring each of the other major Texas metros, which gives an honest, if partial, comparison as of July 2026:

Austin's core counties aren't the outlier here — Bexar County (San Antonio) posted the sharpest year-over-year increase of the six. Dallas County's rate hasn't moved at all, and Harris County (Houston) barely ticked up. Austin's rise is real and broad-based across Travis, Williamson, and Hays, but it's part of a wider Texas pattern rather than something isolated to the capital.

What's Happening With Construction and Permits?

Building permits fell to 2,072 in July 2026, down 11.4% from a year earlier — the same pullback direction flagged in last month's report. But construction employment moved the opposite way, growing 5.5% year-over-year to 98,266 jobs, and average weekly wages across the metro rose 5.6% to $1,851. Fewer new permits are being filed, but the existing construction pipeline is still employing more people to build it out.

That permit and project data — the raw filings behind these employment numbers — lives in full on our sister platform Zabalist, which tracks every registered Central Texas construction project by developer, contractor, and valuation.

What Locals Should Know

• If you're selling: the median listing price is down, but that reflects the overall mix of what's on the market this month more than a guaranteed drop in your specific home's value — the House Price Index (same-home tracking) is roughly flat.
• If you're job-hunting: unemployment has ticked up across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties alike, but it's a modest, broad-based rise (0.3–0.4 points), not a spike concentrated in one industry or area.
• If you work in construction: permits are down, but the jobs and paychecks in the sector are both still growing — the slowdown hasn't reached employment yet.

Track This Yourself

Every number above updates monthly in our own economy data hub — including the Austin MSA economic dashboard (unemployment, GDP, wages, permits) and the housing tracker (listing prices, the House Price Index, days on market, active listings) used to build this report.

Method & Sources

All figures are pulled from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) series for the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown MSA and Travis, Williamson, Hays, Dallas, Harris, and Bexar counties, via ATX Things' own economy tracker. Home price and listing figures reflect MEDLISPRI12420; the repeat-sales comparison uses the House Price Index for the Austin MSA; county unemployment uses each county's own BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics series, e.g. Travis County. Year-over-year comparisons use the same calendar month one year prior. Source: FRED / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via ATX Things economy tracker, as of 2026-08-01.

FAQ

Is Austin's housing market crashing in 2026? No single dataset shows a crash. The median home listing price is down 9.8% year-over-year, but the House Price Index — a repeat-sales measure of the same homes — is roughly flat at +0.3%. The gap reflects what's being listed, not a uniform drop in existing home values.

What is Austin's unemployment rate right now? The Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown MSA's unemployment rate was 4.0% in July 2026, per FRED, up from 3.6% a year earlier. Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties all posted similar increases of 0.3–0.4 percentage points.

How does Austin's economy compare to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio? Full MSA-level comparisons aren't available yet for the other three metros in this dataset. At the county level, Bexar County (San Antonio) saw the sharpest unemployment increase of the group, Harris County (Houston) rose modestly, and Dallas County was unchanged year-over-year.

Are building permits declining in Austin? Yes — permits fell 11.4% year-over-year to 2,072 in July 2026. Construction employment and wages both kept growing over the same period, so the pullback in new filings hasn't shown up in the job numbers yet.

Why did the median home price drop so much if the House Price Index barely moved? The two series measure different things. The median listing price reflects whatever homes are actively for sale in a given month, which can shift with the mix of price tiers on the market. The House Price Index tracks repeat sales of the same properties over time, which is a steadier gauge of what individual homes are actually worth.