Ed 
Is now a good time to buy a house in Austin? If you need a house, yes, but it is going to cost you. The median home in Travis County sold for $495,000 in August 2026, and at Freddie Mac’s latest 7.28% rate that is $2,709 a month in principal and interest with 20% down. A year ago the same loan at 6.34% was $2,461. That is $248 a month more for the exact same house (and that is before taxes, which in Travis County are no joke).
The rate comes straight from Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, which put the average 30-year fixed at 7.28% for the week of October 1, 2026, up from 6.34% a year earlier. The price comes from our own Travis County sales data, built from the same MLS closed sales the Austin board reports on. So this is not a guess about some future market. This is what the payment looks like today, right now, on the house in the middle of the county.
So when somebody asks me if now is a good time to buy, here is what I really tell them. The best time to buy is when you need to buy. That does not mean it is the best market for you to buy in. Time to buy and market to buy are two different things.
What a Travis County median home costs per month at 7.28%
Lets just do the math. Same $495,000 house, three down payments, today’s rate versus the rate a year ago. I ran every number in a script off the standard 30-year amortization formula, so nobody fat-fingered a calculator here (least of all me).
| Down payment | Loan amount | P&I at 7.28% (Oct 2026) |
P&I at 6.34% (Oct 2025) |
Extra per month | Extra per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5% ($24,750) | $470,250 | $3,218 | $2,923 | $295 | $3,540 |
| 10% ($49,500) | $445,500 | $3,048 | $2,769 | $279 | $3,348 |
| 20% ($99,000) | $396,000 | $2,709 | $2,461 | $248 | $2,976 |
Principal and interest only on a 30-year fixed, priced off the Travis County median sold price for August 2026 (all residential sales). Rates are Freddie Mac PMMS averages. Your actual rate depends on your credit, points and loan type. PMI on the 5% and 10% rows and homeowners insurance are not included.
Now add property tax, because in Texas you have to. If that $495,000 house sits inside the City of Austin and Austin ISD, the 2025 adopted rates from the Travis County Tax Office stack up to $1.9431 per $100. That is about $9,618 a year, or $802 a month, before any exemptions. Once you homestead it, the $140,000 school district exemption alone knocks off about $1,295 a year and gets you to roughly $694 a month. I compared tax rates across the whole metro in this post on Austin area property tax rates, and the short version is your address matters more than your city.
So with 20% down and taxes before the exemption, you are looking at about $3,511 a month before insurance. With 5% down, about $4,020 before insurance and PMI. That is the real number. Not the number on the listing, not the number from a calculator that assumes you live in Ohio.
The price dropped and the payment still went up
Here is the part that surprises people. The Travis County median was $524,990 in August 2025. This August it was $495,000. Prices are down $29,990, about 5.7%. Sounds like a win right.
It is not. Put 20% down on the August 2025 median at last year’s 6.34% and your principal and interest was $2,611. Put 20% down on this year’s cheaper median at 7.28% and it is $2,709. You pay $29,990 less for the house and $98 a month more to own it.
That is what I mean when I say the market has decided interest rates are expensive right now. The house got cheaper. The money to buy it did not.
Plenty of homes, which is the good news
But here is the other side of it, and it is a real advantage. Right now there are plenty of homes on the market, so as a buyer you have the options, and you get to pick the best home instead of fighting over whatever is left.
Our sales data backs that up. From January through August, here is what Travis County looked like three years running.
| Travis County, Jan through Aug | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New listings | 16,524 | 17,483 | 18,795 |
| Closed sales | 9,369 | 9,030 | 10,099 |
| August median sold price | $500,100 | $524,990 | $495,000 |
Source: Neuhaus Realty Group market data, Travis County, all residential sales. September 2026 is still being reported and is not included.
New listings are up 7.5% over last year and up 13.7% over 2024. Sales picked up too, about 11.8% over 2025, so this is not a dead market. It is a market where sellers keep showing up. And as of October 2, 2026, there were 6,541 active residential listings in Travis County in our MLS feed. That is a lot of front doors.
So is this the best time to buy from the point of view of picking a great home? Yes. You get to be choosy. You get to walk away from the one with the weird foundation report (and every inspection has one weird thing, that is just how houses work). But it is going to be expensive, and you should go in knowing that.
If you want to see what is out there before you decide anything, start a saved search on Travis County homes for sale, or narrow it to Austin, Pflugerville, Manor, Lakeway or Bee Cave. New listings hit your inbox and you get a feel for what $495,000 actually buys in each one.
Do not plan on the refinance
Ok, this is the part I care about most.
You can refinance later, presumably. Rates go down sometimes. But we don’t ever plan for that. You need to be comfortable with the payment you are making now, today, at 7.28%, for as long as you own the house.
Why be so stubborn about it? Because a plan that only works if rates fall is not a plan, it is a bet. Taleb’s whole thing in The Black Swan is that we are terrible at predicting what happens next and way too confident that we can. Rates could drop next spring. They could also sit right here for three years. Nobody knows, me included (and if I could call rates I would be doing something a lot more profitable than writing blog posts).
So run the table above against your real budget. If $3,218 a month with 5% down makes your stomach hurt, that is your answer, and the answer might be more down payment, a smaller house, or waiting. If the payment works today, then a refinance down the road is a bonus, not a rescue. That is not that hard right.
I wrote more about why betting on the refi is risky in this post on “marry the house, date the rate”, and our Texas refinancing guide covers what a refi actually costs when the time comes.
So, is now a good time to buy a house in Austin, or should you wait?
The Stoics, Marcus Aurelius and Ryan Holiday’s modern take on him, keep coming back to one idea, you only control your side of things. You do not control the Fed or the 10-year Treasury. You do control which house you pick, how much you put down, and whether the payment fits.
If you need to buy, buy. Use the inventory, take your time, pick the best house you can find, and make sure you can live with the payment as-is. If you do not need to buy, waiting is a perfectly fine choice too, just know you are trading today’s selection for a guess about tomorrow’s rate. Either way, make the decision on the payment, not on the headline.
For a deeper look at loan options and how to compare lenders, our Austin mortgage guide walks through it, and if you are torn between renting and owning, start with the rent vs buy guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Lets look at your real number
Every one of those numbers changes with your down payment, your credit and the address you land on. If you want to run the math on an actual house, with the actual tax rate on that lot, reach out to me, Ed Neuhaus, and lets grab coffee. I have been selling homes here since 2009 and I would much rather help you buy a payment you are comfortable with than a house you are nervous about.
Be safe, be good, and be nice to people.
