Austin Market Flow Score Up 3 Months Straight | May 11, 2026

Austin Market Flow Score Up 3 Months Straight
May 11, 2026

A Big Week for Rates, and a Market That Is Outperforming Itself

We start the week with the 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.375, the 10-year Treasury sitting at a 4-year high, and the bond market trading up several basis points in anticipation of Tuesday's CPI release. CPI is the consumer price index, the headline inflation reading, and it drops at 7:30 a.m. The forecast calls for a move from 3.3% to 3.7% year-over-year. The Federal Reserve's target is 2%, so we are still well north of where they want to be. The bond market has already priced in a hotter number, which means a print at forecast could actually produce a small rally in yields. PPI follows on Wednesday, and the back-to-back inflation data is what will move rates this week. Retail sales come Thursday. None of this is theoretical. The advice to clients this week is to lock if they need certainty, and watch the email update Tuesday morning for the actual prints.

Leading Indicators Are Still the Story

The new listing to pending ratio is the single best leading indicator for the Austin metro, and it currently sits at 0.51. That means roughly two new listings are entering the market for every one that goes pending. Inventory is still being added, just not at the pace we saw a year ago. The more important data point is year-to-date cumulative new listings versus pending, where the difference is 3,029, compared to 5,422 at this point last year. That is a meaningful change in the slope of inventory growth. We are not running away from buyers like we were in 2025.

New listings are now down year-over-year for every single month going back to August 2025. Cumulative new listings from January through May sit at 20,409, which is 18.3% below last year but still 10.3% above the long-term average. That combination, fewer new listings hitting the market while sales hold up, is what is driving the improvement in the underlying ratios.

The Daily Briefing: Active Down, Pending Up

Active residential listings sit at 16,505, down 0.7% year-over-year. Pending listings are at 5,137, up 3.0% year-over-year. Pending peaked in early May this year, and the demand cycle has likely already topped for the season. That is the honest read. We are not going to cross last year's active peak of 18,146, and we are probably not going to cross last year's pending peak either. The win this year is that we are outperforming last year on the way down, not on the way up.

The Activity Index and the Cycle

The activity index is the percentage of total listings that are under contract, and it currently reads 25.6% for May 2026 versus 23.1% in May 2025, a 2.8% gain. The market hit two activity peaks this season, one at the end of March and one at the end of April, without quite breaking through the 25% line on a monthly basis. That puts the metro at the upper end of the softening band and just below equilibrium. Cedar Park is at 30.94%, Round Rock at 30.07%, and Pflugerville at 24.69%. Three zip codes are running hot: 78739, 78749, and 78750, all at the top of the leaderboard. 78705 in West Campus is the lone cold zip code in the metro, with 10.9 sellers per buyer.

Months of Inventory and the Hyperlocal Reality

Months of inventory sits at 5.77 for May 2026, down 2.9% from 5.95 a year ago. The metro-level number masks a wide range. Cedar Park is at 2.90 months, Pflugerville at 3.86, Round Rock at 3.99. On the other end, Dale sits at 35.25 months, Spicewood at 18.64, and Smithville at 15.55. This is why every listing presentation needs to be built on the data for that specific subdivision and that specific zip code. A presentation in 78628 looks nothing like a presentation in 78633.

Pricing and the Market Flow Score

Median sold price for May 2026 came in at $465,200, up 5.0% year-over-year and up 7.0% month-over-month. That month-over-month figure will compress as the month progresses, since higher-priced homes tend to close earlier in the month. Average sold price hit $609,972, up 4.6% year-over-year. The sold-to-list ratio is 98.04%, the strongest reading in over a year. Six cities are now showing positive year-over-year median sold price, including Bastrop, Burnet, Lago Vista, Manor, Smithville, and Wimberley.

The Market Flow Score, our 0 to 10 composite measure of market velocity, currently reads 4.72, compared to 3.84 in May 2025. This marks the third consecutive month of year-over-year improvement. Historically, four months in a row of improvement signals a sustained market recovery. We are one reading away from that threshold, and every leading indicator is pointing in the same direction.

The Bottom Line for Agents and Clients

The macro takeaway is straightforward. Demand has likely peaked for the season, but we are outperforming last year across every measure of velocity, and inventory is no longer growing the way it was. Builders are pulling back on new listings, new construction inventory is down 8.8% year-over-year for May, and resale supply is no longer flooding in. This is a market in slow recovery, not in expansion, and the agents who win this cycle are the ones running hyperlocal data on every listing and every offer.

Questions and Answers

Tuesday's CPI release is being called the biggest data day of the week. If I have a buyer locked in a contract right now, what do I tell them?

CPI drops at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and the forecast is 3.7% year-over-year, up from 3.3%. The bond market is already trading as if it expects a hotter print, which means yields could actually drop if the number comes in at forecast. If your buyer is mid-contract and rate-sensitive, the safer play is to lock before the print rather than trying to time the data. If they are early in their search and not under contract, this is a good week to watch and not chase. Wednesday brings PPI, the input side of inflation, and Thursday brings retail sales. Three consecutive data days will set the tone for rates through the end of the month.

I keep hearing the market has peaked but also that it is recovering. Which is it?

Both are true, and they describe different things. Demand for the spring selling season has likely peaked, meaning pending activity is rolling over for the year. That is the normal seasonal cycle. Recovery refers to the year-over-year comparison, where we are outperforming 2025 on the Market Flow Score for the third month in a row, with pendings up 3.0% and the activity index up 2.8%. The market is not in expansion. It is in a slow grind back toward equilibrium, and the trajectory is positive.

I am a buyer looking in Austin proper. Where is my leverage right now?

It depends entirely on zip code. West Campus, 78705, currently has 10.9 sellers for every buyer, which is the only cold zip code in the metro. That is real leverage. On the other end, 78739, 78749, and 78750 are running hot, with months of inventory near 1.87 to 2.06. In a hot zip code, you compete. In a cold zip code, you negotiate aggressively on price, on concessions, and on contingencies. Pull the data for the specific zip code before writing your offer.

I am a seller in a softer pocket of the metro. New construction in my area is offering big incentives. How do I compete on a resale?

Builders have been holding the line on inventory and reducing incentives this spring, since they know the market has bottomed and buyer engagement is returning. Some communities that were offering $35,000 in incentives last October are now offering closer to $6,000 in flex cash. That actually helps resale. Your job is to present a property that does not need the incentive shield in the first place. Pull the pending data for your specific subdivision, look at what sold fastest and at what price, and engineer your listing around those signals. Pricing, staging, marketing, and presentation, in that order.

Wimberley is showing the highest year-over-year median sold price increase in the metro. What is actually happening there?

Wimberley's median sold jumped to $599,900, up 22.1% year-over-year. The number is real but the cause is composition. Fewer properties are selling, but the ones that close are at the higher end. So the median moves up sharply, even though transaction volume is down. This is why agents need to understand that a median sold price is a snapshot of what closed, not a measure of price appreciation on any given home. For pricing a listing in Wimberley, you do not extrapolate from the 22% figure. You look at comparable closings, days on market, and the buyer pool for that specific price band.

As an investor, where does the data point me right now?

Three areas stand out. Cedar Park, Round Rock, and Pflugerville are showing the lowest months of inventory and the highest activity index in the metro, which means tight supply and strong velocity. If you are buying for cash flow or long-term hold, the entry math is tougher in those zips. If you are looking for value with patience, the cool zip codes in west and northwest Austin like 78705 and 78734, where sellers outnumber buyers significantly, are where opportunistic pricing exists. The Market Flow Score reading of 4.72 says the metro is still well below historical averages, which means buying conditions across most of the area are more favorable than they were 18 months ago.

The new construction inventory drop is significant. How long does this trend last?

New construction active listings are down 8.8% year-over-year for May, the third consecutive month of widening declines. Builders pulled back on new listings starting in August 2025 because the market was saturated, and that decision is now showing up in the inventory data. The National Association of Home Builders housing market index drops Monday, May 18th, and based on what we are seeing on the ground, that release should come in positive. If builder confidence holds and new listings stay constrained through summer, the supply side of the resale market gets meaningfully tighter going into the back half of the year.

Closing Paragraph and Action Checklist

This is a transitional market, and transitional markets reward agents who run their listings on data and ignore the noise. The Austin metro is outperforming last year on every measure of velocity, the Market Flow Score is on track to hit the four-month recovery threshold in May, and inventory is no longer building the way it did in 2025. Demand has likely peaked for the season, which means the agents who win the next 90 days are the ones who price correctly the first time, present a clean product, and have honest conversations with their clients about what the local zip-code data is telling them.

This week's action checklist:

Read the CPI release at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and the PPI release Wednesday, and send a brief client update Tuesday afternoon
Lock rate-sensitive buyers before Tuesday's print rather than trying to time the data
Pull zip-code level activity index and months of inventory before every listing presentation this week
For listings in cold zip codes like 78705, build your strategy around buyer leverage, not seller pricing power
Review pending data in your subdivision and identify what sold in under 10 days, then reverse engineer pricing, staging, and marketing
Watch the National Association of Home Builders housing market index release on Monday, May 18th for new construction signal

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