Ed Neuhaus I had a seller call me last month who said something I hear at least once a week right now: “We’re thinking about waiting until the market comes back.”
I asked her what she thought “comes back” meant. She paused. “You know, when it gets back to normal. When prices go up again.”
Ok. So lets talk about what waiting actually costs, what the data says about 2026, and whether the spring window is as good as it’s going to get for a while. Because the math on this is more interesting than most people realize, and it cuts both ways.
The Austin Market Right Now (And Why the Data Is Confusing)
Here’s the weird thing about where Austin sits in early 2026. The headline numbers look rough for sellers. Homes are averaging 89 days on market, the highest we’ve seen since 2011. There are roughly 12,800 active listings across the metro. Just over half of everything listed has had at least one price reduction. On paper, that sounds like a seller’s nightmare.
But here’s what that framing misses. The market isn’t broken. It’s correcting. There’s a difference.
From 2020 through 2022, Austin went temporarily insane. Homes were selling in 48 hours with multiple offers and waived inspections. People were buying sight unseen and waiving appraisal gaps on K houses. That wasn’t a market. That was a frenzy, and frenzies end. We’re back to something that actually functions, which means pricing matters, presentation matters, and timing matters again.
The 89-day average DOM includes all the overpriced listings that are sitting. Correctly priced homes in good condition are still moving. The seller who lists at comps and stages properly isn’t waiting 89 days. That number is dragged up by the sellers who didn’t read the market, which is actually useful information when you’re trying to decide what to do.
What Interest Rates Are Actually Going to Do
This is the part where I’m going to disappoint some people. The rate rescue isn’t coming in 2026.
Wells Fargo projects the 30-year fixed averaging 6.15-6.18% through the year. Fannie Mae’s January 2026 forecast says rates near 6% for most of 2026 and 2027. The Fed cut rates three times at the end of 2025, then signaled maybe one more cut in 2026. One. And the Fed funds rate isn’t mortgage rates anyway, they just correlate loosely.
I know you’ve heard the line “when rates drop, buyers will come flooding back.” That’s probably true. But if you’re waiting for rates to hit 5% before listing, you might be waiting until 2028. And while you’re waiting, your home is sitting on a balance sheet with carrying costs that add up faster than you might think.
The Math of Waiting (This Is the Part Most Sellers Haven’t Done)
Lets actually run the numbers. Say you own a ,000 home in Lakeway or Bee Cave and you’re thinking about waiting 12 months to see if the market improves.
Here’s what that year costs you, conservatively:
Property taxes: At Bee Cave’s effective rate of roughly 1.8%, that’s about ,800 for the year. Lakeway runs similar. Dripping Springs a bit higher.
Homeowner’s insurance: Texas premiums have climbed hard in the last three years. Budget ,000-,500 for the year depending on the policy and coverage level.
Maintenance: A K home needs upkeep. HVAC service, landscaping, minor repairs, pest control. Conservatively ,000-,000 annually if nothing breaks. If something breaks, you know how that goes.
Mortgage payment (if you still have one): Let’s say you have a K balance at 4.5% from a few years ago. That’s ,773/month in principal and interest, or about ,276 annually. Of which a meaningful portion is interest, not equity.
So waiting 12 months conservatively costs you somewhere between ,000 and ,000 depending on your mortgage situation. And that’s before we talk about opportunity cost, which is the money you could have deployed into something else.
Now, how much would prices have to appreciate in 12 months to make that math work in your favor? If prices go up 3%, your K home gains ,000. That’s roughly break-even with carrying costs if you have no mortgage, and a loss if you do. The market would need to run 5-7% appreciation in 2026 for waiting to clearly win. And the forecasts aren’t calling for that. Not even close.
What About Waiting for More Buyers to Come Back?
This is the other version of the waiting argument. “I’m going to wait until there are more buyers.” It sounds sensible. But it has a problem: when more buyers do come back, more sellers come back too. In fact, sellers tend to lead the recovery. By the time you see headlines about Austin getting hot again, you’re probably listing into a more crowded market against sellers who’ve had another year to fix up their properties and optimize their pricing.
The sellers who do well at the beginning of a recovery are the ones who got in front of the wave, not behind it.
Spring 2026: The Window That’s Actually Opening Right Now
Historically, April is the fastest month to sell a home in Austin. Not May, not March, April. Homes listed in April average around 36 days on market, which is 53 days faster than the current overall average. Buyers who’ve been sitting out the winter start shopping seriously in late February and March. Families planning a summer move are making offers in April and May.
That spring surge is real and consistent. And if you’re thinking about Q2 2026, here’s the additional context: inventory isn’t growing as fast as it was. January 2026 actually saw new listings come in 15.4% below the prior year while under-contract activity ticked up 6.9%. The direction of travel matters as much as the snapshot.
Is this a full recovery? No. But the floor is forming. I wrote about this in more detail in the Austin market January 2026 update if you want the full data picture. The point is: Q2 2026 may well be a better window than Q2 2027, and it’s almost certainly better than sitting out 2026 entirely.
When Waiting Actually Makes Sense
I’m not going to sit here and tell you everyone should sell right now. That’s not honest and it’s not useful. Waiting is the right call in some situations.
If you bought in the last 18 months and you’re underwater, waiting may be the only viable option. You need the market to recover before a sale makes financial sense, and that’s a legitimate position. Selling at a loss to get out early is rarely the right move unless you have a compelling reason, job relocation, divorce, financial hardship.
If you have a sub-3.5% mortgage from 2020-2021, that’s a genuine asset. If your next home is going to require a new mortgage at 6.1%, the math of giving up your current rate matters. Whether you should stay put and rent or whether the lifestyle/equity situation justifies the move is a case-by-case conversation, and I’d rather have it with you specifically than tell you what to do from a blog post.
If your home genuinely needs work, a 6-12 month delay to complete meaningful renovations can absolutely add net value if you’re strategic about which improvements move the needle. Kitchens and primary baths. Every other renovation is a crapshoot.
But if you’re waiting because you think the market is “going to come back” to 2021 levels, lets talk about that expectation. Austin isn’t going back to 2021. That market was powered by pandemic migration and record-low rates that won’t exist simultaneously again. What we’ll get is a normal, functional market where well-priced homes sell and overpriced ones don’t. And the Austin housing market forecast for 2026-2027 isn’t projecting a sudden price surge.
The Spring Inventory Problem Sellers Haven’t Thought About
Here’s something that gets overlooked. Spring doesn’t just bring more buyers. It also brings every other seller who had the same idea you did.
Right now, in February, the buyers who are shopping are serious. They’re not casual browsers who showed up because their feed started showing spring home tours. They’re people with genuine timelines, pre-approvals in hand, who’ve been watching the market for months. There are fewer of them, but the ones who are out there are ready to move.
List in April and you’ll have more buyer traffic. You’ll also have more competition from every neighbor who’s been sitting on the same “wait until spring” plan. Supply typically jumps 30-40% between February and May in Austin. The buyer pool grows, but so does the seller pool.
Being a little early isn’t the worst position to be in.
Austin’s Submarket Reality
These timing questions aren’t one-size-fits-all even within the Austin metro. The dynamics in Westlake are different from Dripping Springs, which are different from Round Rock, which are different from the neighborhoods inside Austin proper.
Westlake and West Austin luxury (.5M+): This market has been slower to correct and slower to recover. The buyer pool is smaller, DOM runs longer, and the emotional motivation to move is lower for high-net-worth owners. If you’re in this segment, patience is warranted, but so is realistic pricing. I wrote about the West Austin luxury market dynamics here.
Bee Cave and Lakeway (K-.1M): This is where most of the action is right now. Good supply, active buyers, and the spring window matters more here than anywhere. Check the Bee Cave market update and Lakeway market update for specifics.
Dripping Springs (K-K): New construction competition is real here and it changes the calculus. When you’re competing with builders offering rate buydowns and incentives, your resale needs to either be priced below new or offer something new construction can’t. Location, lot size, finished look.
Seller Strategy If You Decide Q2 Is Your Window
The sellers who win in this market do a few specific things right. And they’re not complicated, they just require accepting the market for what it is instead of what it was.
Price from day one using current comps, not peak comps. The biggest mistake I see is sellers pricing based on what their neighbor got in April 2022. That neighbor is irrelevant. The 2026 pricing strategy is a completely different exercise.
Get a pre-listing inspection done. In this market, buyers are using inspections aggressively. Surprises at inspection kill deals. Know what you have before you list and either fix it or price it in. The top seller mistakes article has more on this.
Understand what you’re actually netting. It’s not just the sale price. The hidden costs of selling add up fast, and sellers who go in without modeling the net proceeds end up surprised at the closing table.
Get a real market analysis, not a Zestimate. In a non-disclosure state like Texas, automated tools are working with incomplete data. If you want to know what your home is actually worth right now, you need a CMA from someone who’s working active comps in your specific area. That’s what a real market analysis looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Lets Look at Your Specific Situation
The generic answer to “should I sell now or wait” is: it depends. But you didn’t come here for that.
What I’ve found after 16 years in this market is that most sellers who are “on the fence” aren’t really on the fence about the market. They’re on the fence about their next move. Sometimes they’re scared they won’t find anything to buy. Sometimes they haven’t run the real numbers on what waiting costs. Sometimes they just need someone to walk through the math with them instead of giving them a generic market update.
If you want to have that conversation, reach out here and we can look at your specific situation. No sales pitch, no pressure to list by Friday. Just an honest analysis of what you own, what it’s worth, what waiting costs, and what the realistic options look like. At Neuhaus Realty Group, that’s the conversation we’d rather have than hand you a one-size-fits-all answer.
Sometimes waiting costs more than selling. And sometimes it doesn’t. But you should know which one you’re doing.
