Hays County Home Prices and Inventory: September 2026

The September numbers for Hays County look contradictory at first glance, and the explanation matters more than either number on its own.

The median sales price came in at $399,900 — up 10.8% from September 2025. Over the same month, closed sales dropped 30.5%. Prices up, sales way down. If you are trying to decide whether to list this winter or wait, that combination is the whole question, so let me walk through what I think it is actually telling us.

All of these figures come from the Unlock MLS September 2026 Central Texas Housing Report, published Oct. 13.

Key takeaways

• Median sales price: $399,900, up 10.8% year over year
• Closed sales: 294, down 30.5%
• Months of inventory: 4.8, up 0.4 months
• Active listings: 1,898, up 4.9%
• New listings: 498, up 12.4%
• Pending sales: 323, down 1.8%
• A 10.8% median jump on 294 closings is not the same thing as every home gaining 10.8% — read the next section before you price off that number.

Why the median went up while sales went down

A median is just the middle number of whatever sold that month. When the pool of closings shrinks by nearly a third, the mix of what sold moves the median around far more than any change in what individual homes are worth.

Fewer closings at the entry level — buyers who step back when financing gets more expensive — leaves a sold pool weighted a little further up the price scale. The median rises. That is a composition shift, not the same as your house being worth 10.8% more than last September.

I am being careful here on purpose. I cannot tell you what your home will sell for from a county median, and neither can anyone else. What I can tell you is that 294 closings is a thin month, and thin months produce medians that bounce. Hays County spans everything from older homes in central San Marcos to new construction on the edge of Buda, and when the count drops, which of those happened to close carries more weight than it should.

Vaike O'Grady, research advisor at Unlock MLS, tied the sales drop to financing directly: "it shows just how sensitive today's housing market is to changes in mortgage rates."

What 4.8 months of inventory means

This is the number I watch more closely than price, and it is the one I would point a seller to first.

Months of inventory is how long it would take to sell everything currently listed at the current pace of sales. Hays County sits at 4.8 months, up 0.4 from a year ago. For context, the wider Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos market is at 5.4 months, down 0.1.

Historically, Central Texas spent years well under three months of supply. At roughly five months, a buyer walking into a listing has real alternatives and knows it. That shows up as longer conversations about repairs, more requests for help with closing costs, and offers that come in with conditions rather than without.

It is not a market in trouble. It is a market where the house has to be right and the price has to be right, and where neither buyers nor sellers have the upper hand automatically.

More sellers arriving, fewer buyers closing

Two numbers in the report sit in tension, and together they describe the next few months:

• New listings: up 12.4%
• Closed sales: down 30.5%

More homes are coming on than are going off. Active listings are up 4.9% to 1,898. Pending sales, which is the closest thing to a read on right-now demand, are down 1.8% — close to flat, which is at least steadier than the closed-sales figure suggests.

The practical read: supply is building faster than demand is absorbing it. If you are planning to list in the spring, you will be doing it alongside more neighbors than you would have last year.

If you are selling in Kyle, Buda or San Marcos

Three things I would actually do:

Price to the comps, not to the headline. A county median that moved 10.8% on light volume is not a pricing tool. What matters is what sold in your neighborhood, at your size and age, in the last 90 days. In a five-month market, the listings that sit are almost always the ones priced off last year's story.

Expect to negotiate on something. When a buyer has 1,898 active listings to choose from, the question stops being whether they will ask for something and becomes what you would rather give. Deciding that before an offer arrives is worth more than holding firm on everything and losing two weeks.

Think about the calendar. New listings being up 12.4% matters for timing. Going on in January or February means fewer competing listings than waiting for the spring wave.

If you want to see where your own home actually lands, start with a home value estimate — but I would rather just look at your street with you. That is a twenty-minute conversation, not a form.

If you are buying

This is a materially better market to buy in than the one we had three years ago, and that is worth saying plainly.

Nearly 1,900 active listings in Hays County means you can see several homes that genuinely fit instead of competing for the only one. Five months of supply means you can ask for an inspection, ask for repairs, and ask for help with costs without being shown the door. Those were not realistic asks here in 2021 or 2022.

The trade-off is financing, which is what pulled closings down 30.5%. That is a personal math question rather than a market one, and it is the part where having Dustin on the same team helps — he is a licensed mortgage loan originator as well as an agent, so we can look at the payment and the purchase in one sitting rather than two.

How Hays County compares to the broader market

Worth keeping in view, since a lot of the coverage you will read is Austin-wide:

	Hays County	Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos
Median sales price	$399,900 (up 10.8%)	$421,000 (up 1.4%)
Closed sales	294 (down 30.5%)	2,223 (down 14.8%)
Months of inventory	4.8 (up 0.4)	5.4 (down 0.1)
New listings	498 (up 12.4%)	3,546 (up 2.8%)

Hays County still carries less supply than the metro overall, and the median remains about $21,000 below the MSA figure. That gap is a long-running reason buyers keep looking south along I-35 — you can see what that looks like by neighborhood across Hays County.

What I would take from this month

One month is one month. The sales drop is the figure I would treat as most real, the inventory build is the one with the clearest consequences for how a deal gets negotiated, and the median jump is the one I would be most careful about repeating without context.

John Crowe, this year's Unlock MLS and ABoR president, put the right frame on it: "every buyer and seller is in a different position." A county median cannot tell you yours.

I keep a running read on these numbers on our market update page, and if you are weighing a move I would rather talk through your specific situation than hand you a county average. Call or text me at 512-820-3084, or reach out through our contact page.

Sources

• Unlock MLS, September 2026 Central Texas Housing Report (published Oct. 13, 2026)