Austin has more single-story homes than retirees think

More than half of the single-family homes that sold in the Austin metro this year were single-story. 8,945 out of 16,479 closings where the MLS reported a level count, or 54.3%, across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties from January 1 through August 20 of this year. As of late August there were 6,020 one-level single-family homes sitting active on the market. So when somebody tells you there is nothing on one level out here, they are wrong, and it is not close.

Those numbers come out of our own MLS feed, which I can slice by the number of levels on the house. I started pulling it this way because I got tired of answering the question with a shrug and a guess (which I did for probably ten years, so I am not exactly proud of the chart). And what it shows is that the problem is almost never supply. The problem is that “single-story” and “the areas people actually look in” do not overlap the way you would expect.

Here is what I mean. I sat with a couple last spring who had spent four months looking in Westlake and Lakeway for a one-level house and had convinced themselves the metro had none. They were half right. Lakeway is 41.7% single-story, one of the lowest shares among the cities in the table below. They were shopping in the exact spot where the thing they wanted is hardest to find, and then concluding it did not exist anywhere. That is a search problem, not an inventory problem.

Where the one-level homes actually are

This is every postal city in the five-county metro with at least 150 single-family closings this year, sorted by how much of that market is single-story. Sample size is in the table because you should not trust a percentage without one.

Closed single-family sales, Jan 1 to Aug 20, 2026, from the Neuhaus Realty Group MLS data feed, counting the closings where the MLS reports a level count. Single-story means that level count is “One.” A one-and-a-half story still has stairs, so I counted it with the multi-story homes.

Lockhart is the highest share in that group at 81.5%. Cedar Park is the lowest in it at 39.8%. That is a spread of nearly 42 points inside one metro, which is why a blanket statement about “the Austin market” is close to useless here. You have to shop by area, right.

Georgetown is the one I would point most people at first, and it is not because of the number. It is because of the volume. 1,117 one-level homes closed there this year. That is more single-story closings than Lockhart, San Marcos, Bastrop, Jarrell and Lago Vista put together, and you get an actual choice instead of two listings and a prayer.

One warning about that table

The city column in the MLS is the postal city, not the city limits. Those are different things and it matters more than you would think. “Austin” as a mailing address reaches into three counties this year, and the numbers underneath it are not the same market at all:

Same word on the envelope, $287,500 of spread between the medians. Buda, Elgin and Leander split across two counties each the same way. So if you are comparing listings and the prices look scrambled, that is probably why.

Single-story does not mean old

Ok this is the part I actually think matters most, and it is the assumption I hear on almost every first call.

When somebody pictures a one-level house here, they picture a 1970s ranch. Low ceilings, dark hall, popcorn on the ceiling, one bathroom that is fine but you would want to redo it. Kahneman’s whole thing is that we judge how common something is by how easily we can call an example to mind, and the example everybody calls to mind for “single-story” is forty years old. So people assume the search means buying old.

The data says the opposite. Here are this year’s closings from the 1940s on, broken out by the decade the house was built:

Look at the bottom row. 3,314 single-story homes built in the 2020s sold this year. That is more than twice the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s buckets combined, which come to 1,428 between them. The biggest pile of one-level homes changing hands in this metro is not old ranch stock. It is new construction, and of those 2020s-built one-level sales the three biggest sources were Georgetown at 450, Kyle at 356 and Hutto at 274.

Builders in this part of the country lean that way on purpose. The National Association of Home Builders looked at Census Survey of Construction data and found 56.6% of new homes started in the West South Central division, which is Texas plus Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, were single-story in 2025. Nationally the one-story share of new starts went from 47.5% in 2024 to 48.6% in 2025. Flat land and cheap lots make one level the easy call for a builder (nobody frames a second story out here because it is charming, they do it when the lot forces them to), and that has been quietly working in your favor for years.

What one level actually costs you

Now for the honest part, because the headline number makes this look better than it is.

Across the metro, the median single-story home sold for $394,900 this year and the median multi-story sold for $515,000. That looks like a $120,100 discount for the thing you want, which would be a hell of a deal.

It is not a discount. It is a smaller house.

You pay $215 a foot for one level and $197 a foot for two. So the premium for keeping everything on the ground is real, it is about 9%, and it just gets hidden inside a smaller footprint. For context the Census Bureau puts the median completed single-family home nationally at 2,142 square feet in 2025, out of 1,005,000 completed. Our one-level median is 327 feet under that.

That is fine, honestly. Most people I work with on this are coming out of a 3,200 foot house their kids left twelve years ago (and half of those rooms have been storing Christmas decorations since the Obama administration, lets be real) and they are not mourning the square footage. But you should go in knowing you are paying up per foot, because at some point a builder is going to tell you the one-story plan is “the value option” and it isn’t.

The lot number is the one that surprised me. 0.179 acres versus 0.172. Basically identical. Everybody assumes a single-story house means a sprawling footprint and therefore a bigger yard to keep up with, and at the median that is just not true in this metro, because the lots got small for everybody. So if the maintenance worry has been keeping you in a two-story, you can let that one go. No big deal right.

The Georgetown thing everybody gets wrong

People hear Georgetown is 62.4% single-story and immediately say “well yeah, Sun City.”

Sun City is 64 of Georgetown’s 1,789 closings this year. Under 4%. It is not moving that number, and the rest of Georgetown does not carry a 55-plus age restriction or a Sun City price. Woodfield Preserve closed 69 homes this year and 44 of them were one level. Lively Ranch closed 52 with 41 one level. Those are just regular neighborhoods with anybody in them.

I bring this up because a lot of people looking for one-level living think their only real option is an age-restricted community, and then they either buy into one they did not want or give up. You do not have to sort yourself into a category to get a house without stairs.

What to actually weigh

Stairs are the obvious thing and they are usually the wrong thing to lead with. A few that matter more in practice:

How the one level is laid out. A 1,900 foot single-story with a 60 foot walk from the primary bedroom to the kitchen is not obviously better than a two-story with everything you use daily on the first floor. Plenty of newer builds here are primary-down with the kids’ rooms and a game room upstairs, and functionally you live on one floor. Do not throw those out of the search. Just walk the actual path you would take at 6am.

Doorway and hall width. This is the one that is genuinely expensive to change later and nobody checks it during a showing (I have never once seen a buyer measure a hallway, myself included, and I do this for a living). Widening a hall is framing work. Swapping a tub for a curbless shower is a weekend. If you are weighing two houses and one has 36 inch doors, that is worth real money.

Lock-and-leave versus the yard. The lot data says the yards are about the same size either way, so the question is not acreage, it is who mows it. An HOA that handles the front is the difference between six weeks in Colorado and not going. Ask what the HOA actually maintains, in writing, not what the sales office says it maintains.

Distance to your doctors, not to “healthcare.” Everybody says be close to a hospital. In practice what you use is the cardiologist you already like and the pharmacy that has your file. Lockhart is a great value on this list and it is also a real drive to most Austin specialists. That may be completely fine. Just make it a decision instead of a surprise.

Where you will be in year eight. If a place only works while you are driving comfortably, you have picked a house with an expiration date on it. I would rather see somebody pay a little more in Georgetown or Round Rock and have grocery and urgent care in five minutes than save $60,000 out east and be stuck.

How to actually run the search

The listing sites are bad at this. Their story-count filter is inconsistent and misses a big share of the field, which is part of why the “there’s nothing available” feeling is so common.

We can filter it properly on our end. Tell me the areas you are considering and I will set up a saved search for single-story only in those areas that emails you when something new hits, before it shows up on the public sites. It costs nothing and you can shut it off whenever. If you are still figuring out where to point it, start with the table above and pick three that fit your budget, then let a few weeks of real listings tell you which one feels right.

If you want more on the modifications side, our complete guide to accessible homes and ADA modifications in Austin goes deep on what is worth doing and what it costs, and the aging in place guide covers the planning side. If it is the move itself you are weighing, the downsizing guide for empty nesters and our take on the best Austin suburbs for retirees are both worth twenty minutes.

And if you want to just look at what is out there, start here: Georgetown, Round Rock, Hutto, Kyle, Pflugerville, San Marcos, Bastrop, Lockhart and Lakeway.

Lets talk about it

If you have been assuming the one-level house you want does not exist in this market, it does. There were 6,020 of them active as I wrote this. The trick is pointing the search at the areas that actually have them instead of the areas everybody starts in.

Call me and tell me what you are trying to do, and I will tell you honestly whether the areas on your list can deliver it or not. Sometimes the answer is that your budget and your area do not fit together, and I would rather say that in a twenty minute conversation than let you spend four months finding out. Reach out here or find me here, and we can start with a saved search and go from there.

Be safe, be good, and be nice to people.