Austin Real Estate Market Update September 24, 2026 | Daily Briefing

Austin suburbs below peak prices in September 2026 are not spread evenly across the metro, and the gap between the city and its neighbors is wider than most buyers expect: the City of Austin's year to date median sits just 6.2 percent under its record, while Round Rock sits 20.0 percent under, Pflugerville 21.0 percent and Buda 24.0 percent.

Scroll down to view the full Austin Daily Real Estate Briefing PDF for September 24, 2026.

Those numbers come from the city appreciation page of today's briefing, which measures each city's 2026 year to date median sold price against that same city's own peak. That basis matters. The City of Austin median on this page is $572,500, far above the metro figure, because it includes central neighborhoods where land is scarce. So nothing here says a house in Austin costs the same as a house in Buda. It says Austin's prices have held much closer to their own high water mark than prices in several of its biggest suburbs. For a buyer deciding where to live, distance from peak is one of the clearest ways to read the Austin real estate map, because it shows which places have already given back the most.

The pattern stands out because the counties that hold most of these suburbs are where the people are going. Census estimates reported by KXAN show Hays and Williamson counties each grew by more than 3 percent between July 2024 and July 2025, with Williamson adding almost 24,000 residents, while Travis County grew about 1 percent. Population growth has not turned into price strength in places like Round Rock and Buda, and part of the reason is supply. Spyglass Realty reports that builder incentives are concentrated in outer metro communities including Leander, Georgetown, Kyle and Pflugerville, where builders carry the most standing inventory. When a builder down the street is buying down a mortgage rate, a resale seller has to compete on price. All of this plays out against a 30 year fixed rate that Freddie Mac put at 6.95 percent as of September 17, up from 6.26 percent a year earlier.

One explanation for the gap is how far each place climbed. Working from the same page, Round Rock's median rose from $317,500 at the end of 2020 to a peak of roughly $500,000, a gain of about 57 percent. Pflugerville and Buda climbed by a similar or larger share, while Austin's rise was closer to 40 percent. These peak figures are derived from each city's current median and its stated drop from peak, so treat them as approximations. The places that ran hardest have had the most to give back. But that explanation only goes so far. By the same arithmetic, Leander climbed further than Round Rock and now sits only 13.1 percent below its peak. Georgetown, right next door to Round Rock, is 9.8 percent below. Distance from peak is not simply a story about who overheated.

What changed this year is that the gap is still widening in two of the three. Round Rock's year to date median of $400,000 is down 3.6 percent from 2025, and Pflugerville's $375,250 is down 6.2 percent, while Austin moved just 0.3 percent. Buda held flat at $349,999. Across the 30 cities in the report, 7 are up year over year and 23 are down. Closed medians are a lagging measure. They reflect contracts signed weeks or months earlier, so they show where prices have been rather than where they are heading.

For direction, the Activity Index is more useful. It measures pending contracts as a share of all pending and active listings, so a higher number means a larger share of the supply is getting picked up. On the all listings basis used on the How Fresh page, Buda reads 21.5 percent, Round Rock 20.1 percent and Pflugerville 19.3 percent, all above the metro's 18.3 percent. The City of Austin reads 17.0 percent. In plain terms, the suburbs furthest from their peaks are currently turning a larger share of their inventory into contracts than the city is. Sellers per buyer tell the same story: 2.1 in Buda, 2.2 in Pflugerville and 2.3 in Round Rock, against 2.6 in Austin.

The discount is being delivered through price cuts. In Pflugerville, 65.8 percent of active listings have had at least one reduction, and in Buda and Round Rock the figures are 60.9 and 59.5 percent. In Austin it is 53.4 percent, and across the entire MLS it is 56.7 percent. Buyers in these suburbs are responding to prices that have already been adjusted, not to original asking prices.

The price per square foot data adds a wrinkle worth knowing. The percentile page covers sales from the past 30 days compared with the same window last year. On that page, Round Rock's bottom quartile price was essentially flat at $330,070, down 0.1 percent, while its price per square foot fell 10.8 percent to $163. Entry level buyers in Round Rock are paying about the same as a year ago and getting noticeably more house for it. Pflugerville's entry quartile fell on both measures, 7.2 percent on price and 7.6 percent per square foot. That page uses a different base from the annual figures above, so the two should not be compared directly.

Here is what the gap is worth in monthly terms. Take Round Rock at its $400,000 median against its derived peak of roughly $500,000. With 20 percent down at 6.95 percent, the $80,000 smaller loan works out to about $530 less per month in principal and interest, a derived figure. The catch is rates. At last year's $415,000 median and the 6.26 percent rate from a year ago, the same buyer's principal and interest would have been about $2,046 a month. At today's $400,000 and 6.95 percent it is about $2,118, roughly $72 more, even though the price fell. The price discount is real, but the higher rate has absorbed it and then some.

The report's return to peak projection puts the distance in time. Using each city's own long run compound appreciation rate, Austin would need about 15 months to regain its high, Round Rock and Pflugerville about 62 months each, and Buda about 90. Those are yardsticks, not forecasts. They assume steady growth at 5.0 percent a year for Austin, 4.2 percent for Round Rock, 4.4 percent for Pflugerville and 3.6 percent for Buda, and markets rarely deliver growth in a straight line. None of this describes a recovery. Some metrics are improving in some places, but the metro Activity Index is 18.3 percent against 19.5 percent a year ago, and pending contracts are down 5.9 percent.

For buyers weighing a move between submarkets, the takeaway is that the deepest discounts from peak sit in places where contracts are currently moving at an above average pace. That means the discount is being competed for, not ignored. Sellers in Round Rock, Pflugerville and Buda should price against this year's closings, not the 2022 comparables their neighbors remember. Investors should note that Buda's 90 month runway to peak rests on the slowest long run compound rate of the four, so the discount is real, but so is the slower historical growth behind it.

Tracking Austin suburbs below peak prices in September 2026 will matter most as fall contracts close, because the Activity Index readings above hint at where the Austin housing forecast may firm first. Visit teamprice.com/austin-daily-real-estate-briefing for the complete archive of daily market data.