Q4 2026 · SAN ANTONIO & Central Texas MARKET UPDATE
Every Dial Moved the Same Direction
In our last edition we wrote that pending sales — not the closing headlines — were describing the market you would actually be listing into. The third quarter is now complete, and the verdict is in: sales growth went +15%, +5%, then negative. Pendings fell −10%, −13%, −16%. Days on market climbed 77, 81, 88. And in the six weeks around the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike, the 30-year mortgage jumped from 6.66% to 7.40%. This is what an orderly slowdown looks like from the inside — and it is not the same market for every price band.
Three kinds of statement appear in this report. We label all of them.
Most market commentary blends published data, arithmetic performed on that data, and the author's opinion into a single confident voice. That makes it impossible to know which parts you can rely on. We separate them.
- Unmarked text is a published, sourced figure. It comes from SABOR, the Texas Real Estate Research Center, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, or a named national data source, and the source is named at the point of use.
- Derived means we did arithmetic on published figures. The inputs are sourced; the calculation is ours. We show the work.
- Our read means this is judgment, not fact. It is our interpretation of what the data implies. Reasonable analysts could read it differently, and we say so where the alternatives are credible.
Nothing in this report is a forecast of prices. We do not publish those, because we have no reliable way to make them and neither does anyone else who does.
What we said last quarter — and what actually happened
A market report you can trust is one willing to be graded. These are the three forward-leaning readings from our prior editions, scored against the quarter that followed. We will do this every edition, including the quarters where we are wrong.
The call: In June, closings were up 15% while pending contracts fell 10%. We wrote that the pending figure was the market's real message, that the closing boom was describing spring, and that continued pending declines would make softer closing volume the base case.
What happened: Pendings fell −13% in July and −16% in September. Closed-sales growth followed the path down: +15% in June, +5% in July, and in September, 2,793 closings against 2,823 a year earlier — roughly 1% below last year, per SABOR's own three-year table. Derived The pipeline predicted the quarter almost exactly.
The call: In August, with consensus forecasts pointing to 6.4–6.5% mortgage rates by year end, we noted that three Federal Reserve members had dissented in favor of a hike — and wrote that "the risk around them is not one-sided" and that we would not price a home against those forecasts.
What happened: The Fed raised rates at its September meeting — its first increase in three years — and Freddie Mac's 30-year average climbed from 6.66% in late August to 7.40% by October 8. The consensus forecasts we declined to lean on missed by nearly a full percentage point, in the opposite direction.
The call: Through the summer we argued that rising medians alongside flat price-per-square-foot reflected a change in which homes sold rather than rising values — first reading it as larger homes, then as a new-construction surge.
What happened: September sharpened the picture: the median fell 2%, the average fell 2%, and price per square foot fell 4% — the first month in this report's run where every price dial pointed down at once. The composition story was real, but it is no longer doing all the work: the price section below carries our updated read, and the previous readings stay on the record.
The one-minute version — September 2026
The September 2026 SABOR release, issued October 9, is the most recent official San Antonio data available. The full quarter-by-quarter progression follows in the next section.
SABOR's September infographic shows total sales up 5% year over year. The press release's own three-year table shows 2,793 sales against 2,823 in September 2025 — about 1% lower — and the release is headlined "Home Sales Edge Lower." Derived We rely on the table, because it contains the actual counts, and we flag the infographic figure rather than quietly picking whichever number reads better. If SABOR issues a correction or revision, our next edition will carry it.
Texas decelerated harder than San Antonio. Statewide sales swung from +7.7% in June to +0.9% in July to −4.4% in September (25,584 closings), with the statewide median down 0.7% to $330,000. Whatever discomfort San Antonio sellers feel this fall, sales volume here is holding up better than the state as a whole — though the statewide median slipped less than ours.
Sources: SABOR MLS Reports, June–September 2026; SABOR / Texas Real Estate Research Center Texas market statistics, June, July and September 2026.
The staircase: three months, eight dials, one direction
Any single month can be noise. A full quarter in which nearly every indicator steps the same way, month after month, is a pattern. This is the third quarter of 2026 in San Antonio, from SABOR's own releases:
| Indicator | June | July | September | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Closed sales, YoY | +15% | +5% | ≈ −1% | Decelerating → negative |
| Pending sales, YoY | −10% | −13% | −16% | Worsening each month |
| Days on market | 77 | 81 | 88 | Slowing each month |
| Close-to-original-list | 93.8% | 93.0% | 92.4% | Wider seller gap each month |
| Median price, YoY | +4% | +2% | −2% | Rising → falling |
| Price per sq. ft., YoY | −1% | 0% | −4% | Flat → falling |
| $750K+ share of sales | 7.99% | 6.82% | 5.62% | Top thinning each month |
| Under-$200K share | 12.33% | 13.72% | 16.25% | Bottom growing each month |
Source: SABOR MLS Reports and SABOR/LERA market statistics, June, July and September 2026. August's monthly release is not in our source set for this edition, so the table shows the three months we can document; the September closed-sales figure uses the release's three-year table, as noted above. Pending, days-on-market and price figures are as published.
Our read This is not a crash. It is the most orderly slowdown we could draw: volume and speed gave ground first, for months, in public — and prices moved last, and least. Markets that break move suddenly. This one has been announcing itself one staircase step at a time.
The inventory paradox — why "months of inventory" fell while everything slowed
Months of inventory eased from 6.13 in June to 5.95 in September even as pendings, days on market and the close ratio all deteriorated. Our read The likeliest mechanics: active listings actually slipped slightly across the quarter (17,409 → 17,155) while closings — which settle contracts written one to two months earlier — stayed elevated through summer, flattering the ratio. Dividing September's actives by September's closings gives 6.1 months. Derived Our read If closings now follow the pending pipeline down while active inventory holds, that same arithmetic pushes months-of-inventory back up through the fall. Treat 5.95 as a snapshot of summer demand, not a sign of tightening.
A cleaner demand gauge
Divide the homes going under contract by the homes available: 15.5% of active inventory went pending in June, 14.5% in July, 12.2% in September — against roughly 15.1% in September of last year. Derived One in eight available homes found a buyer last month. A year ago it was closer to one in six and a half.
The sideways year is being tested from below
Through July, the story we told was consolidation: on an industry trend series for the San Antonio area, the monthly median bounced inside a roughly $293,000–$321,000 band for twelve months, with every crossing generating a misleading headline. September is the first reading in this report's run that tests that story — on SABOR's broader footprint, a different ruler, so we compare direction rather than position inside that band. The board-wide median printed $302,999, down 2% year over year, while price per square foot fell 4% to $168, the largest decline in this series, and the average fell 2%.
Our read For the first time, composition is straining to explain it all. Note the direction of the mix: the $750K-and-above share of sales fell from 7.99% to 5.62% across the quarter while the under-$200K share rose from 12.33% to 16.25%. A mix sliding down-market drags the median down mechanically — so part of September's −2% median is composition. And a down-market mix drags average price per square foot down too, since higher-priced homes in this market tend to command more per foot — so no single September gauge cleanly separates value from composition. What persuades us the softening is not purely compositional is breadth: the board median, board average and price per foot, Bexar County's single-family median (−4.8%) and average (−3.8%), and a national metro tracker's median (−1.8%) all printed negative in the same window, across different footprints and different constructions. Our working description of San Antonio values entering the fourth quarter: modestly declining — roughly flat to minus a few percent depending on the gauge — after a year of sideways. That is a description of the data in hand, not a projection forward.
Independent corroboration, different footprint: a national metro-level tracker built on a separate data pipeline (through September; its monthly metrics are seasonally adjusted except the median) shows a median sale price of about $304,000, down 1.8% year over year, with median days on market at 90, up 8 days. Two pipelines, one direction.
The county-level median has now printed $310,545 (June), $295,813 (July) and $282,680 (September) — a 9% slide across the span Derived — and September's release puts Bexar single-family median down 4.8% year over year, with county inventory at 5.4 months and single-family sales up 6%.
Our read Single-county, single-month medians are volatile, and we cautioned against reading too much into any one of them. Three consecutive declines plus a published negative year-over-year figure is no longer one of them. The county core is repricing faster than the board-wide footprint, which includes higher-priced Hill Country counties. Sellers in the county core and the buyers shopping it are living in slightly different numbers than the headline.
Sources: SABOR Texas market statistics infographics (June, July, September 2026, county figures attributed to TRERC); SABOR September 2026 press release (Bexar single-family figures).
Three rulers, three labels, one direction
Three credible gauges currently measure the same San Antonio market with three different rulers — and hand back three different labels. Rather than quote whichever flatters a narrative, here are all three:
| Ruler | Reading | Their label |
|---|---|---|
| SABOR / LERA | 5.95 months of inventory, September, board-wide footprint | Upper edge of the conventional "balanced" range |
| National market-cycle reading | San Antonio metro, September position | Late in the balanced phase, tilting toward buyers — inventory growing, price growth stalled; its guidance amounts to: sellers, price to the market and budget patience; buyers, you are gaining time, selection and leverage |
| National buyer & seller count | ~19,000 active sellers vs. ~9,000 active buyers in the metro, through August — sellers outnumber buyers by about 122%, up nearly 10 points in a year | A buyer's market, under the common convention that treats anything within ±10% as balanced |
Sources: SABOR MLS Report, September 2026; two national market-condition datasets for the San Antonio metro (September and August 2026 readings; internal ledger refs. S-2 and S-1). Each measures a different footprint with a different method; the labels are theirs, not interchangeable, and not ours.
Our read The labels disagree because the definitions disagree. The direction does not. Roughly two sellers now compete for every active buyer in the metro by that count — the widest surplus in roughly a decade of that data; as recently as 2020–21, buyers outnumbered sellers. The practical answer to "whose market is it": below the median, a negotiating market that still functions normally for well-priced homes; above roughly $750,000, decisively a buyer's market; everywhere, a market that punishes the wrong opening price faster than last year.
One more wrinkle worth knowing: both sides are retreating. The same dataset counts buyers down 4.7% year over year and sellers down 0.4%. SABOR's new listings ran 5,057 in June, 4,767 in July, 4,172 in September — partly seasonal, but July's count was below its prior-year month. Our read This is a standoff, not a stampede: discouraged buyers stepping back while would-be sellers wait for a better window. Standoffs resolve on whichever side blinks first, and the rate section below is the strongest argument that it will not be the buyers' financing costs doing the blinking soon.
The Fed hiked. Mortgage rates followed — hard.
The defining financial event of the quarter was not local. At its September meeting the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by a quarter point — its first increase in three years — after holding at 3.50–3.75% in July over three dissents that wanted a hike then. The minutes released October 8 kept the hawkish tone. Mortgage rates repriced immediately:
| Week of | 30-Yr Fixed | 15-Yr Fixed |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 27 | 6.66% | 5.98% |
| Sept 17 (Fed hike week) | 6.95% | 6.26% |
| Oct 1 | 7.28% | 6.60% |
| Oct 8 | 7.40% | 6.73% |
Source: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey weekly averages. Selected weeks shown; the move was continuous.
Seventy-four basis points in six weeks, and the full year's arc is brutal: roughly 6.09% at the late-February trough (MBA conforming series), 6.69% in early August, 7.40% now. On a $400,000 loan, principal and interest run about $2,421 at the February trough, $2,578 at August's rate, and $2,770 today Derived — roughly $349 a month between the year's best print and this one. That comparison spans two different rate series (the trough is MBA's, today's figure is Freddie Mac's), so treat it as an illustration rather than a precise move. Our read Run through a lender's debt-to-income test, that is not a budgeting nuisance; it removes a meaningful slice of the buyer pool at the margin. September's −16% pending print and a 74-point rate surge in the same six weeks are, in our judgment, substantially the same event viewed from two angles — though seasonality and sentiment contribute, and SABOR publishes nothing that would separate them.
The daily index, and the rest of the rate stack
Freddie Mac's weekly survey lags the market by design, so here is the faster gauge: a widely followed national daily lender-pricing index, at its most recent print as we publish (accessed October 12), shows the 30-year conventional at 7.48% — 0.13 points under its 52-week high of 7.61%, against a 52-week low of 5.99%. A daily lender-pricing index and a weekly survey measure differently and should not be subtracted from one another; we show both so the freshest read sits beside the citable weekly standard. For what it is worth, the latest daily print ticked down two basis points on the day — Our read noise inside a six-week surge, not evidence of a turn. The rest of the stack, same index, same day:
| Product | Rate | vs. 30-yr conventional |
|---|---|---|
| 30-yr conventional | 7.48% | — |
| 30-yr jumbo | 7.63% | +0.15 points |
| 30-yr VA | 7.17% | −0.31 points |
| 30-yr FHA | 7.15% | −0.33 points |
| 7/6 SOFR ARM | 6.90% | −0.58 points |
Source: daily lender-pricing index, accessed October 12, 2026 (internal ledger ref. S-3). Spread column is our arithmetic on same-day, same-index prints. Daily indices reprice every business day; these figures will move.
- The volatility is the story as much as the level. Within the trailing 52 weeks, the same index has printed 5.99% and 7.48% on the 30-year. On a $400,000 loan that is roughly $2,396 versus $2,791 a month — a $395 swing on the identical house at the identical price, driven entirely by timing. Derived Our read This is why we treat rate timing as unknowable and price discipline as the controllable variable: nobody rings a bell at 5.99%, and the people who waited for it to return have so far paid 149 basis points for the wait.
- VA pricing is a quiet local advantage. VA loans are pricing about a third of a point below conventional — and in San Antonio, where VA eligibility is unusually common, that discount materially widens who can still qualify at today's levels. Our read Sellers: a VA-backed offer at this spread deserves more respect than dated agent folklore gives it.
- The ARM gap has reopened. A 7/6 ARM at 6.90% sits 58 basis points under the 30-year fixed on the same index — a meaningful gap. Our read For a buyer with a realistic sub-seven-year horizon it is a legitimate tool again; the discipline is qualifying as if the post-adjustment rate were the real one, because after year seven, it is.
Last edition we quoted the published institutional forecasts (6.4–6.5% by year end) and declined to lean on them. They missed by nearly a point. So this quarter we add a different reference: prediction markets, where traders stake real money on outcomes. As of October 12, those markets price roughly a 76% chance the Fed hikes again in December, about 80% odds of a pause in October, a 96% chance 2026 ends with zero rate cuts, and only an 8% chance of a U.S. recession beginning by year end — with September inflation expected to print near 3.6–3.7% annually.
Our read These are market-implied odds on the day of publication, not forecasts, and they move daily — by the time you read this they will have moved. What they are useful for is direction and burden of proof: the money is positioned for borrowing costs to stay elevated or rise, not fall. Anyone timing a sale or purchase around imminent rate relief is betting against the crowd that is paid to be right. They may be — crowds have been wrong before — but it should be a deliberate bet, not an assumption.
Sources: FOMC statements July 29 and September 2026; Freddie Mac PMMS; real-money prediction market pricing accessed October 12, 2026. Odds are volatile and time-stamped.
For buyers above the conforming limit, the structural facts are unchanged: the 2026 conforming cap for a one-unit property in standard-cost areas, San Antonio included, is $832,750. With 20% down a buyer stays conforming to roughly $1,040,900; with 10% down, to roughly $925,300. Derived Loan amount is set on the lesser of price or appraised value and financed costs can shift it, so confirm with a lender. On the same-day daily index above, jumbo priced at 7.63% against 7.48% conventional — a modest 0.15-point premium, and a spread that moves; the durable difference remains underwriting: stronger credit, lower debt-to-income, larger reserves.
Four markets wearing one name — and the gap between them widened
| Price band | Share of Sept sales | Approx. closings Derived | Share in June |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 – $199,999 | 16.25% | ~454 | 12.33% |
| $200,000 – $499,999 | 66.31% | ~1,852 | 66.89% |
| $500,000 – $749,999 | 11.82% | ~330 | 12.79% |
| $750,000 and above | 5.62% | ~157 | 7.99% |
Share percentages: SABOR / LERA MLS, September 2026; June shown for comparison. Closing counts are our arithmetic, applying each share to 2,793 total sales.
Our read Read that last column against the first. In one quarter, the under-$200K slice grew from one in eight sales to one in six, while the $750K-plus slice shrank from one in twelve-and-a-half to one in eighteen. The 74-basis-point rate surge bites hardest where buyers stretch — and the top of the market is where discretionary buyers simply wait.
This band still clears — 66% of September's sales — but it is where the rate math lands directly on qualification, and where builders compete hardest against resale: July industry MLS data for the San Antonio area showed single-family new-construction closings up 143% year over year while resale closings fell 27%, with incentives as the weapon. The same series showed $350–399K homes that sold moving in 74 average days, among the market's fastest.
If you are selling here: Our read At 7.4% financing, your buyer's constraint is the payment, not the price — so a seller-funded rate buydown or closing-cost concession now does more work per dollar than an equivalent price cut, and it protects your comp. Have both tools priced before you list. And the market-wide 92.4% close-to-original-list figure says the average opening number is still too high; the correction is happening in public, over 88 days, at the seller's expense. The cheapest day to be priced correctly remains day one.
If you are buying here: Our read You hold more negotiating leverage than at any point since before 2020 — and it costs you 7.4% to use it. The honest framing is a trade: today's terms, selection and concessions against today's financing. If the prediction markets above are right about rates staying up, waiting buys you little on the financing side and risks losing the leverage; if they are wrong and rates drop, the leverage compresses quickly as sidelined buyers return. Negotiate the rate itself — a seller-funded buydown — not just the sticker.
Roughly 330 homes closed between $500,000 and $749,999 in September Derived — down from ~445 in June, a steeper pullback than the market's. July's band-level data showed this tier is not one market: the low-$500s ran among the region's slowest (97 days average among July's closings) while the $600s ran fastest (71 days).
If you are selling here: Our read With fewer closings, each qualified buyer carries more weight, and presentation quality is most of the margin — buyers here compare you against a handful of alternatives, not a spreadsheet of fifty. Mind the positioning boundary near $500K: an ask just above it draws from a measurably thinner pool than one just below. And with the $750K+ share of the market shrinking, the move-up buyer who would purchase your home before buying up is scarcer this quarter; allow for a longer runway than summer's averages implied.
If you are buying here: Our read Listings past the 60-day mark — and at 88 days market-wide, there are many — have exhausted their launch attention and usually had the repricing conversation internally. A complete, credible offer lets a seller act on it. This is the band where patience plus preparation is currently paid best.
The conforming boundary ($832,750 loan; roughly $925K–$1.04M purchase price depending on down payment) still splits this band's buyer pool in two, and at 7.4% conforming, every financed buyer here is writing a materially larger check than in the spring. The $750K+ share of total sales fell from 7.99% to 5.62% across the quarter — approximately 157 September closings across the entire SABOR footprint. Derived
If you are selling here: Our read Our August study of this segment found it bimodal — homes either sold at roughly normal speed or didn't sell at all, with 41.7% of resolved listings failing. Nothing in the quarter's data suggests that pattern eased — and our October flash pull found more luxury listings exiting unsold than selling (details in the study section below). The question that matters is not "how long will this take" but "which cohort will this listing join" — and the answer arrives in the first eight weeks. A listing without real activity by then is accumulating history, not exposure.
If you are buying here: Our read An unambiguous jumbo approval — reserves documented, underwriting pre-cleared — is worth real money in a band where sellers watch two of five listings around them fail. Cash buyers and large-down-payment buyers have rarely had more relative advantage here.
Here the quarter produced the one countertrend worth naming. National segment data for the metro's top price tier (a tier definition of its own, rolling June–August window) shows the luxury median sale price at just under $1 million, up 5.8% year over year — while the non-luxury median rose just 0.6%. Luxury active listings fell 6% while non-luxury actives rose 3.2%, and luxury days on market held near 70. Luxury pending sales fell 10% — demand thinned there too — but supply thinned faster.
Our read While the middle of the market accumulates inventory, the top is exercising supply discipline: owners who do not need to sell are declining to list, and the scarce well-positioned properties that do list are holding price far better than the market beneath them. This squares with our August finding rather than contradicting it — that study showed the failure rate among luxury listings that do come to market; the tracker shows fewer owners choosing to try. Both describe a tier where the gap between the correctly launched property and everything else keeps widening.
If you are selling here: Our read Scarcity is quietly working for you — if your launch is precise. The buyers at this level are less rate-sensitive than payment-driven buyers below, but they are confidence-sensitive, and they have time. Comparables at this altitude are an argument, not a lookup; the quality of that argument, and the discipline to hold a defensible position, decide the outcome.
If you are buying here: Our read With luxury inventory shrinking, the on-market selection understates what could transact. Direct, discreet owner outreach — sourcing, not searching — matters more this quarter, not less.
Source: national top-tier segment data, San Antonio metro area, rolling three months June–August 2026, accessed October 2026 (internal ledger ref. S-1). Its luxury definition is a top price tier of the metro market and differs from our $800,000+ study cutoff; the two are not interchangeable.
Our own audited 2,077-listing study of the $800,000-and-above market, pulled August 11, 2026, appears in full later on this page — now joined by a one-month flash refresh pulled October 16, in which the study’s central pricing finding repeated. The full three-month re-run comes next edition. Where our pulls and the national segment data describe different windows and definitions, we present each and label each.
The two lines on the payment that are not the mortgage
Texas Real Estate Research Center work published this summer remains the best framing we have seen: the mortgage stopped being the only moving line in a Texas housing payment.
Insurance — San Antonio's advantage, still eroding
San Antonio carries the lowest homeowners-insurance burden of the four major Texas metros — roughly $157 a month in 2024 against $181 in Austin, $225 in Houston and $238 in Dallas-Fort Worth — but premiums here rose 22.6% in 2023 alone, the sharpest single-year jump among the four. Statewide, Texans paid about $540 a year per $100,000 of home value versus roughly $340 nationally. That statewide ratio is an average dominated by median-priced homes; do not scale it up to estimate a premium on a high-value property — get a real quote, and sellers should get one before their buyer's option period does it for them.
Property tax — a deadline measured in weeks now
The statewide aggregate effective tax rate fell 22.11% between 2019 and 2025 — Texas property tax is better than its reputation and improving. Two timely mechanics: the 10% homestead appraisal cap is a deferral, not a forgiveness, so a tax notice can rise faster than the market in a slow year while appraisal catches up. And the 20% circuit-breaker cap on non-homestead real property is scheduled to expire at the end of 2026 — now roughly eleven weeks away. Our read If you hold investment, ranch or second-home property in Central Texas that has been sheltered by it, the conversation with your tax professional belongs on this year's calendar, not January's. Statutory conditions apply and legislative treatment can change; confirm current status directly. Note also that local taxing units generally adopt rates by September 30 — or shortly after receiving the certified appraisal roll — and tax bills mail from October 1 — the carrying-cost picture for 2027 is being set now.
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center, Tierra Grande, Summer 2026: "Covered But Costly" (Su, Natarajan); "The Push and Pull of Texas Property Taxes" (Krebs). Not tax, legal or insurance advice; confirm specifics with a qualified professional. TRERC's companion analysis of federal housing-finance proposals (50-year mortgages, prepayment penalties, portability, GSE capital expansion) is summarized in our prior edition; its conclusion — that all four stimulate demand and tend to be capitalized into price — stands unchanged.
What our audited $800K+ study found — and why it still matters
SABOR publishes no days-on-market, absorption or outcome figures by price band, so in August we ran our own query: every Single Residential listing at $800,000 and above, 2,700+ square feet, lots to 15 acres, LERA/SABOR MLS, across Bexar County and the surrounding region — Boerne, New Braunfels, San Marcos, La Vernia, north to Blanco — all statuses, trailing three months. 2,077 records. The headline findings:
- 8.1 months of supply — 1,187 actives against 146 closings a month Derived — versus 6.13 citywide at the time.
- 41.7% of listings that reached an outcome never sold — 314 came off the market against 439 that closed.
- Failed listings were priced within $4,000 of still-active ones (medians $1,199,000 vs. $1,195,000), both roughly 17% above the $1,020,000 median of what actually closed — with beds and baths identical at 4/4 across every status.
- Days on market sorted outcomes perfectly: pending 46, sold 57, active 84, off-market 109 (medians). The median active listing had already outlasted the median successful sale.
Our read Nothing in the quarter since argues these dynamics eased — the $750K+ share of sales fell in every release this quarter, and rates rose 74 basis points. What did change is the supply side at the very top, where that national segment tracker now shows luxury actives shrinking. We will re-run the full audited pull for the next edition and publish whatever it shows, including anything that contradicts this one.
Study parameters and limitations as published in the Q3 edition. Because it draws only on SABOR data, coverage at the Hays and Comal County margins is likely partial. A second detail table from the original pull was excluded because its record count did not reconcile; that exclusion stands.
October flash pull: one month of fresh data, and the pattern held
On October 16 we ran a one-month refresh: Single Residential, $800,000 and above, 2,600+ square feet, lots to 15 acres, LERA/SABOR MLS, trailing one month, across a rectangle covering the metro’s northern arc — Boerne and Bulverde through Spring Branch, Canyon Lake and Wimberley to New Braunfels, San Marcos and Seguin, plus San Antonio’s north side. 1,468 records. Three parameters differ from the August study (a one-month window instead of three, a 2,600-square-foot floor instead of 2,700, and a different map boundary that omits southern San Antonio and the La Vernia area), so the two pulls sit side by side; we do not read them as a trend line. What one month can and cannot tell you:
- More luxury listings exited unsold than sold. In the month: 105 closed, while 146 came off the market without selling — 58% of the listings that reached an outcome. Derived That stands on its own, no comparison needed.
- The pricing structure replicated. Median ask of still-active listings: $1,175,000. Median ask of the listings that just failed: $1,199,000 — within about 2% of each other. Median closed sale: $1,000,000. Both ask medians sit roughly 18–20% above what closed Derived, with four-bedroom medians across every status and four baths in all but pending (five). Our read This is the August study’s central finding repeating out of sample, under different parameters — which makes it less likely to be an artifact of one query and more likely to be how this segment currently works: the homes still waiting are priced like the homes that already gave up.
- The forward pipeline is thin. 60 listings pending against 1,157 active — about 5% of inventory under contract, and roughly 0.6 months of pipeline at the month’s closing pace. Derived The August pull’s same snapshot ratio was 11.5%; the parameters differ enough that we will not put a number on the change, but the direction is hard to read as anything but softer.
- Single-month supply arithmetic lands near 11 months (1,157 ÷ 105). Derived Our read We would not equate that with the August study’s three-month 8.1 — one autumn month is seasonally thin and the parameters differ — so treat it as a snapshot, not a measurement of change.
- Closings were slower. The month’s sold listings took a median of 80 days to go under contract, where the summer study’s sold cohort took 57 — directionally consistent with the citywide slowdown from 77 to 88 average days, with the same side-by-side caveat.
Team Infinity LERA/SABOR MLS flash query, October 16, 2026. Small cohorts by construction (105 sold, 60 pending in one month) — every figure above is a snapshot. One sold record shows an $8.4M sale price against a maximum final list price of $2.7M in the same cohort, an apparent entry anomaly; we therefore quote medians from this pull and publish no average-based ratios from it.
What we expect to watch — and the one thing we now treat as base case
In August we wrote that one more month of pending declines would make softer fourth-quarter closing volume the base case rather than the risk case. September delivered it, steeper. So it is now our base case: fewer closings this quarter than last year's fourth quarter, with the pending pipeline (−16%) and the rate shock as the mechanism. Our read That is an expectation about volume, not prices, and here is the honest uncertainty: prices held sideways for a year while volume eroded, and whether September's −2%/−4% prints extend or stabilize depends substantially on rates and on how much inventory sellers withdraw into winter. We publish no price forecast.
- Seasonality now stacks on top of the trend. Last year's monthly closings on that industry trend series troughed at 2,335 in November and 1,966 in January. Fourth-quarter volume always sags; this year it sags from a weaker starting point. For sellers: the buyer pool shrinks into the holidays — but so does competing new supply (new listings have stepped down 5,057 → 4,767 → 4,172 since June), and the buyers who remain in a 7.4% December are disproportionately serious. Thinner market, truer signals. Our read
- The December Fed meeting. Prediction markets price a hike at roughly 76% as of publication. A second hike would extend the rate shock into the spring market; a surprise pause-and-soften would do the opposite, quickly. This is the quarter's biggest single variable and it is binary.
- Whether months-of-inventory turns back up. If closings follow pendings down while actives hold near 17,000, the arithmetic pushes MOI above 6 again. Watch the direction, not the level.
- Whether the pending/active ratio stabilizes. 15.5% → 14.5% → 12.2% across the quarter. Derived Stabilization near 12% would suggest the rate shock is absorbed; further decay would not.
- The Bexar County median. Three consecutive declines. A fourth would confirm the core is repricing; a bounce would support the noisy-median reading.
- The circuit-breaker sunset, December 31. Covered above; for non-homestead holders this is an action item, not a watch item.
The market stopped correcting sellers' mistakes for free
Homes closed at an average of 92.4% of original list price in September — a figure that has stepped down in every release this quarter: 93.8%, 93.0%, 92.4%. Stated the other way, the average closing finished 7.6% below the seller's opening number: $38,000 on a $500,000 original ask, $64,600 on $850,000. Derived This is an average of ratios across all closings, including homes that sold at or above list; your outcome will not land on the average — that is the point of the average.
Our read We still do not read this as a weak market. We read it as a market where the opening number is wrong more often, by more, and where the correction takes 88 public days. The gap between well-priced and aspirationally priced homes is as wide as we have seen in this report's run — July's band data showed correctly priced homes in the fast lanes still moving in 71–74 days while the market average stretched. The market has not stopped buying. It has stopped overpaying, and it has stopped hurrying.
We will tell you what the data says before we tell you what we would do about it, and we keep those two things separate. If our read of achievable value is below what you have been told elsewhere, you will hear it in the first conversation, not the fourth month. Where a genuine spread exists between our read and the market's consensus — most often from $500,000 upward — we will sometimes propose a fee structured around reaching an aspirational price, built so that the premium is paid only if the premium result is delivered. The full mechanics belong in a written proposal rather than on a web page.
San Antonio market questions, answered plainly
Are San Antonio home prices falling?
September 2026 was the first month in this report's run where every major price gauge printed negative at once: the board-wide median fell 2% year over year to $302,999, the average fell 2% to $363,341, and price per square foot fell 4% to $168 (SABOR/LERA). A national metro tracker independently shows −1.8%. Bexar County alone was weaker, with the single-family median down 4.8%.
Our read: values are modestly declining — roughly flat to minus a few percent depending on the gauge — after a year of moving sideways. Part of September's median decline is composition, since the mix of what sold shifted down-market during the quarter. One month of negative prints after twelve sideways ones is a test of the floor, not yet a confirmed trend, and we publish no forecast of where it goes next.
Is San Antonio a buyer's market or a seller's market going into 2027?
Three credible rulers currently give three labels: SABOR's 5.95 months of inventory sits at the upper edge of the conventional balanced range; a national market-cycle model places the metro late in its balanced phase, beginning to tilt toward buyers; and a national count of active buyers and sellers finds roughly 19,000 sellers pursuing 9,000 buyers — about 122% more sellers — a gap that qualifies as a buyer's market under the common ±10% convention.
Our read: the labels differ because the definitions differ, but the direction is identical. Below the median price, well-priced homes still transact normally; above roughly $750,000, conditions are decisively buyer-favorable; everywhere, the market punishes an aspirational opening price faster than a year ago.
Why did mortgage rates jump in the fall of 2026?
The Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate a quarter point at its September 2026 meeting — its first increase in three years — citing inflation still elevated relative to its 2% goal, and its October minutes stayed hawkish. Freddie Mac's 30-year average moved from 6.66% in late August to 7.40% by October 8, about 74 basis points in six weeks. On a $400,000 loan that added roughly $190 a month versus August, and about $349 versus the late-February low. Daily lender indices ran higher still — about 7.48% conventional and 7.63% jumbo at this writing, just under the 52-week high, with VA near 7.17% and FHA near 7.15% pricing below conventional. As of mid-October, prediction markets price another hike in December at roughly 76% and near-zero odds of any 2026 cut — market-implied odds that move daily, not forecasts.
How long does it take to sell a house in San Antonio right now?
Homes averaged 88 days on market in September 2026, up 11% from a year earlier and up from 77 in June — across all price bands and the full SABOR footprint. Averages conceal the spread: July's band-level data showed well-priced homes in the fastest bands moving in roughly 71–74 days, while our August study of the $800,000+ segment found listings that eventually failed had sat a median of 109 days. The market average describes a market; your home will be in its fast lane or its slow lane almost entirely based on the opening price and presentation.
Should I sell now or wait until spring 2027?
Published facts: pending sales fell 16% year over year in September; the 30-year is 7.40%; prediction markets price December at roughly 76% odds of another hike and 2026 cuts near zero; new listings have stepped down across every release this quarter (5,057 → 4,767 → 4,172); and fourth-quarter volume is always seasonally thin.
Our read: waiting for spring is a bet that rates ease and demand returns faster than competing inventory does. It may land — but sellers who wait are likely to arrive in the spring alongside every other seller who waited, while this winter's thinner market contains disproportionately serious buyers and less fresh competition. The right answer depends on your property, your band, your carrying costs and your timeline — which is a conversation, not a rule.
Is the luxury market in San Antonio holding up better than the rest?
In one specific way, yes. National data on the metro's top price tier (June–August rolling window) shows the luxury median sale price up 5.8% year over year to just under $1 million, while the mid-market median rose 0.6% — and luxury active listings fell 6% while the broader market's grew. Owners at the top who don't need to sell are declining to list, and scarcity is supporting prices.
The caution: luxury pending sales still fell 10%, the $750,000+ share of all SABOR sales shrank from 7.99% to 5.62% across the quarter, and our audited August study found 41.7% of $800K+ listings that reached an outcome never sold. An October one-month flash pull repeated the pattern: 146 listings came off unsold against 105 that closed, with still-active and just-failed asking medians within about 2% of each other and both roughly 18–20% above the month’s $1,000,000 median closed sale. Our read: the top of the market rewards precise launches more than ever — and punishes mispriced ones just as hard as the summer data showed.
Why do different websites show different San Antonio home prices?
Footprint, window and pipeline. In September 2026 alone: Bexar County's median was $282,680 (SABOR/TRERC county figure), the full ten-plus-county SABOR board footprint showed $302,999, and a national metro tracker showed about $304,000. Each is accurate for its own scope. Always ask which geography and which months a quoted number covers — a report that doesn't say is giving you a headline, not information.
What is the conforming loan limit and why does it matter above $850,000?
The 2026 conforming limit for a one-unit property in standard-cost areas, San Antonio included, is $832,750. Above that loan amount a buyer needs jumbo financing, which typically requires stronger credit, lower debt-to-income and six to twelve months of reserves. By our arithmetic, 20% down keeps a buyer conforming to roughly $1,040,900 and 10% down to roughly $925,300; loan amount is set on the lesser of price or appraised value, so confirm with a lender. Homes priced across that boundary draw from measurably different buyer pools.
How much is homeowners insurance in San Antonio compared with other Texas cities?
Per Texas Real Estate Research Center analysis of data through 2024, San Antonio carried the lowest burden of the four major Texas metros at roughly $157 a month, against $181 in Austin, $225 in Houston and $238 in Dallas-Fort Worth. The advantage is eroding — San Antonio premiums rose 22.6% in 2023, the largest jump among the four. Statewide, Texans paid about $540 a year per $100,000 of home value versus roughly $340 nationally; that ratio is an average dominated by median-priced homes and should not be scaled up to estimate a premium on a high-value property.
Will there be a housing crash in San Antonio?
We publish no forecasts, so here is what the data shows instead. The slowdown has been gradual and public for months: volume and speed deteriorated first while prices held sideways for a year, and September's price declines were 2–4% against a year earlier, not double digits. We see no published evidence of forced selling; sellers are withdrawing rather than capitulating — new listings stepped down across every release this quarter — and lending standards since 2008 are far stricter (TRERC), so credit quality is nothing like 2008, and prediction markets priced only an 8% chance of a U.S. recession starting by end of 2026 as of October 12. Our read: the present pattern is adjustment through time-on-market and negotiation, not dislocation. Conditions can change, and if the data turns, this report will say so.
Prepared by Team Infinity Real Estate Group
We are a listing-focused practice serving San Antonio, Austin, New Braunfels and the wider Central Texas market. This report exists because most market coverage repeats a headline number without saying what it measures, which footprint it covers, or where judgment replaced data — and no one can make a six-figure decision from that. Every edition labels its facts, shows its arithmetic, flags its own sources' inconsistencies, and grades its prior calls in public.
If you are considering a sale in the next twelve months, the most useful thing we can offer is an honest read of what your property is likely to achieve in the market described above — including the version you may not want to hear. That conversation costs nothing and carries no obligation.
How this report was built
Every statistic is attributable to a published source and dated. Arithmetic on published figures is marked Derived with the calculation shown or stated. Judgment is marked Our read. Prior editions' claims are graded in the scorecard, and revisions are noted rather than silently replaced.
Known limitations of this edition
- The quarter table shows June, July and September; SABOR's August monthly release is not in our source set, so quarter-long statements rest on three of four months.
- SABOR's September infographic (+5% sales) conflicts with its own release table (−1%); we rely on the table's counts and flag the conflict above.
- SABOR board-wide, Bexar County, and two national metro datasets (one seasonally adjusted except its median) cover different footprints with different methods; they are presented side by side, never combined arithmetically.
- The national luxury tracker's tier definition differs from our $800K+ study cutoff. The August 11 study was not fully re-run; an October 16 one-month flash pull was added with three parameter differences (window, square-footage floor, map boundary) stated at the point of use, and the two pulls are never combined into a trend.
- Prediction-market odds are market-implied probabilities as of October 12, 2026; they move daily and are cited for direction, not as forecasts.
- Band-level days-on-market figures date to July (an industry MLS series with its own footprint), describe only homes that closed, and carry survivorship bias by construction.
- We publish no price forecast; the single stated base-case expectation (softer fourth-quarter closing volume) is about volume, with its mechanism shown.
Primary sources
- San Antonio Board of REALTORS® (SABOR) MLS Reports and SABOR/LERA market statistics: June 2026 (rel. July 9), July 2026 (rel. August), September 2026 (rel. October 9, including Bexar County single-family figures).
- SABOR / Texas Real Estate Research Center Texas market statistics infographics, June, July and September 2026 (statewide and county medians).
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, weekly averages through October 8, 2026; Mortgage Bankers Association conforming contract rate, week ended February 27, 2026 (cited for the year's trough; a different survey from Freddie Mac's).
- Daily lender-pricing rate index (30-year conventional, jumbo, FHA, VA, 7/6 ARM, and 52-week ranges), accessed October 12, 2026 (ledger ref. S-3) — methodologically distinct from weekly survey averages and never combined with them here.
- Federal Open Market Committee: July 29, 2026 statement; September 2026 rate decision; minutes released October 8, 2026.
- National market-condition reading, San Antonio metro, September 2026 (ledger ref. S-2).
- National market dataset, San Antonio metro: metro tracker (through September 2026), buyer-and-seller counts (through August 2026), top-tier segment (June–August 2026 rolling), accessed October 2026 (ledger ref. S-1).
- Real-money prediction market pricing (Federal Reserve path, recession and inflation markets), accessed October 12, 2026 (ledger ref. S-5).
- Texas Real Estate Research Center, Tierra Grande, Summer 2026 issue (affordability, insurance, property tax and housing-finance-policy articles).
- Team Infinity Real Estate Group proprietary LERA/SABOR MLS queries: August 11, 2026 (2,077 records, $800K+, three months) and October 16, 2026 flash pull (1,468 records, $800K+, one month, northern-arc rectangle); industry MLS trend report for the San Antonio area, July 2026 — band-level speed and twelve-month trend data (ledger ref. S-4).
A note on generic citations: consumer-facing data platforms are identified generically on this page by design. The specific platforms, products and access dates behind every generic citation are recorded by reference number in our internal source ledger, and every figure is quoted as those sources published it — where we round for readability, the text says so at the point of use (“about,” “just under”). Clients may request the ledger.
What this report is not
It is not a valuation of any specific property, and it is not tax, legal, insurance or investment advice. Market statistics describe aggregates; individual properties routinely diverge from them, and in our experience that divergence widens as price rises.
Corrections
If you identify an error, write to Brayson@TeamInfinitySA.com. We will correct it and note the correction in the next edition — as this edition notes the discrepancy we found in our own primary source.
Published October 12, 2026 · Fourth Quarter 2026 Edition · Prior edition: August 11–13, 2026 · Next edition: first quarter 2027
Team Infinity Real Estate Group · Real Broker, LLC · Equal Housing Opportunity