You found the house last night. Tonight you have to give your agent a number, and there is no way to know ahead of time whether it insults the seller or leaves money on the table.
Most advice on this stops at trust your gut or offer what feels right. Neither one helps when there is real money on the line. So we pulled the closing data on 19,809 homes that sold across the Austin area in the past twelve months and looked for what actually predicts how far a home sells below what it was first asked. One number stood out above everything else: how long homes in that specific neighborhood typically take to sell.
It is not close. On a home first listed at $500,000, the difference between shopping in a fast moving Austin area neighborhood and a slow moving one works out to roughly $32,500 in the final price, before either side ever discusses the actual house.
$32,500. That is the swing in final price between a fast moving Austin area neighborhood and a slow moving one, on the exact same $500,000 listing.
The short answer
Across 464 Austin area neighborhoods with enough closed sales to measure reliably, the sales weighted median home closed at 94.4 percent of its original asking price. That means the typical Austin area seller ended up taking about 5.6 percent less than the number they first put on the sign.
That average is not very useful for your specific offer, though, because it hides an enormous range. At one end, homes in some neighborhoods are closing right at 100 percent of what they were first listed for. At the other end, the median home in Lakeside at Tessera in Lago Vista closed at just 81 percent of its original asking price. Both of those are real, current numbers from the same twelve month window.
What decides where any given home falls in that range? Overwhelmingly, it comes down to one thing you can check before you ever write an offer: how long homes in that neighborhood have been taking to sell.
Why days on market predicts your negotiating room
Think about what a seller’s flexibility actually depends on. It is time and it is carrying cost. A seller who listed three weeks ago and already has a strong offer feels no pressure to come down. A seller five months into a listing, still paying a mortgage, taxes, and insurance on a house nobody has bought yet, feels that pressure every day. Days on market is simply the most visible, most easily checked proxy for that pressure, and it is available to any buyer for free before they ever call an agent.
The data backs this up more strongly than almost any other real estate statistic we have looked at. Across the 464 neighborhoods in this analysis, the correlation between a neighborhood’s median days on market and how far below original asking price its homes close is negative 0.686. In plain terms, that is a strong and consistent relationship. As the typical home in a neighborhood takes longer to sell, the gap between what sellers ask and what buyers actually pay reliably grows.
One honest caution here. Slow neighborhoods are not slow at random. Many of them are slow because homes there were priced too high to begin with, or because nearby new construction is pulling buyers away from resale listings. Days on market is a signal of seller flexibility, not the cause of it. Saying that plainly, instead of overselling the statistic, is exactly why the rest of this post is worth your trust.
The actual numbers, by how long homes take to sell
Here is what that relationship looks like when Austin area neighborhoods are split into ten equal groups by their median days on market, from fastest to slowest.
| Neighborhood median DOM | # Neighborhoods | Closed sales | Pct of original list | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 15 days | 53 | 1,362 | 97.5% | $625,000 |
| 16 to 21 days | 43 | 1,250 | 97.5% | $499,000 |
| 22 to 26 days | 44 | 1,322 | 96.0% | $548,617 |
| 27 to 31 days | 52 | 1,936 | 96.0% | $534,750 |
| 32 to 35 days | 41 | 1,558 | 96.0% | $450,000 |
| 36 to 42 days | 49 | 1,538 | 95.0% | $480,000 |
| 43 to 49 days | 44 | 1,742 | 95.0% | $448,750 |
| 50 to 64 days | 49 | 1,704 | 94.0% | $394,000 |
| 65 to 78 days | 42 | 1,832 | 93.0% | $463,375 |
| 79 to 228 days | 47 | 3,059 | 91.0% | $499,000 |
Read down that table and the pattern is almost perfectly monotonic. Nearly every band closes for less of its original asking price than the band before it, all the way from 97.5 percent in the fastest moving neighborhoods down to 91 percent in the slowest. That kind of clean, consistent movement is unusual in real market data, and it is why we are comfortable recommending you use this table as an actual planning tool rather than a general talking point.
Percentages do not feel like money when you are staring at a specific house, so translate the two ends into dollars. On a home first listed at $500,000, a neighborhood with a median under 15 days on market has been accepting close to $487,500. A neighborhood with a median over 79 days has been accepting closer to $455,000. Same list price, same size, same finishes. The only difference is how long homes in that neighborhood have been sitting, and it is worth $32,500.
If ten bands is more precision than you need while skimming, here is the simplified version.
| Days on market | # Neighborhoods | Closed sales | Pct of original list |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 15 days | 53 | 1,362 | 97.5% |
| 16 to 30 days | 130 | 4,151 | 96.5% |
| 31 to 60 days | 181 | 6,580 | 95.0% |
| 61 to 90 days | 62 | 2,938 | 93.0% |
| Over 90 days | 38 | 2,272 | 89.0% |
The two numbers your agent should pull before you write anything
Before you land on an offer number, there are exactly two figures worth asking for, and neither one is the current list price.
The first is the home’s original list price, not its current one. This matters because a home can look firm and actually be soft. Picture a house listed at $550,000 in March, cut to $499,000 in June, and closing at $495,000. Measured against the price it went under contract at, that is a 99 percent close to list ratio, which reads like a seller who barely moved. Measured against the original $550,000, it is 90 percent. The seller already told you, through three months of price history, exactly how much room they had.
The second number tells you the same thing at the neighborhood level. That is the neighborhood’s median days on market over the trailing twelve months, not the individual home’s. One house sitting on the market for 90 days in a neighborhood that typically clears in 20 is a story about that specific house. It might have a real problem, or it might simply be overpriced. A whole neighborhood sitting at a 90 day median is a story about leverage that applies to every home in it, including the one you are about to write an offer on.
Both numbers are pullable from the MLS in a few minutes. Any buyer’s agent working with you should hand them over before you ask, not after.
Where Austin area buyers have the most and least room right now
The averages above are useful for planning, but you are shopping in a specific place, so here is where that plays out on the ground right now.
| Fastest moving | DOM | Slowest moving | DOM | Pct of original |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hidden Oaks at Berry Creek, Georgetown | 0 | Lakeside at Tessera, Lago Vista | 228 | 81% |
| Senna Hills, West Austin | 4 | Riverstone, Georgetown | 221 | 92.5% |
| Sendera South, Southwest Austin | 5 | Casetta Ranch, Kyle | 217 | 92% |
| Riviera Springs, Cedar Park | 8 | Palmera Ridge, Leander | 184 | 86% |
| Lakewood, Northwest Austin | 8 | Heights at San Gabriel, Georgetown | 181 | 88% |
| Circle C, Southwest Austin | 15 | 6 Creeks, Kyle | 122 | 88% |
The pattern holds at the area level too. Northwest Austin and Southwest Austin are the fastest moving parts of the metro right now, with sales weighted medians of 26 and 30 days. Lago Vista, Liberty Hill, and Spicewood are the slowest, at 90, 81, and 66 days.
Here is the part that surprises most buyers. Fast does not mean cheap, and slow does not mean expensive. The fastest moving decile of neighborhoods in this entire dataset actually carries the highest median price of any group, at $625,000. If you are shopping a hot neighborhood assuming you will also land a bargain on price, the data says otherwise. You are trading negotiating room for something else buyers are clearly willing to pay for. Circle C in Southwest Austin is a good example, closing homes in about 15 days with almost no negotiating room left on the table.
The practical takeaway: if the home you are considering sits in one of the fast moving neighborhoods above, treat the number you offer as close to your final number. If it sits in one of the slow moving ones, there is real, documented room to start the conversation below asking and expect the seller to engage rather than walk away.
Days on market by area, all 25 Austin area submarkets
For reference, here is the sales weighted median days on market across every area covered in this analysis, fastest to slowest. Areas like Georgetown and Kyle sit closer to the middle of the range, both landing in the high 60s to low 70s, a useful reminder that most of the metro is not living at either extreme.
| Area | Days on market | Area | Days on market |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northwest Austin | 26 | Buda | 50 |
| Southwest Austin | 30 | Driftwood | 51 |
| West Austin | 33 | Hutto | 56 |
| Bee Cave | 34 | Jarrell | 59 |
| South Austin | 36 | Leander | 65 |
| Cedar Park | 36 | Spicewood | 66 |
| Round Rock | 39 | Georgetown | 67 |
| Central Austin | 42 | Southeast Austin | 69 |
| Lakeway | 43 | Kyle | 71 |
| Dripping Springs | 43 | Jonestown | 77 |
| East Austin | 46 | Liberty Hill | 81 |
| Manchaca | 47 | Lago Vista | 90 |
| Pflugerville | 49 |
When the data says do not lowball
Not every neighborhood in this dataset has room to negotiate, and pretending otherwise would cost you the house.
Only 17 of the 464 neighborhoods analyzed closed at 99 percent or more of their original asking price over the past twelve months, which is functionally zero negotiating room. A few examples: Hielscher and Sendera South in Southwest Austin, Cambridge Heights in Round Rock, Bradfield Village in Buda, and Senna Hills in West Austin all closed within a percent of what they were first listed for.
Only 17 of 464 neighborhoods analyzed closed at 99 percent or more of original asking price in the past year. That is functionally zero negotiating room.
In neighborhoods like these, the real cost of a lowball offer is not that you offend anyone. It is that you lose the house to a cleaner, closer to full price offer while you are still waiting on a counter that may never come. Price is one lever you can pull, and in a fast, firm neighborhood it is usually not the most effective one. Earnest money, option period length, and a clean, flexible closing date often matter more to these sellers than another round of negotiating on price.
One note if escalation clauses come up in your search. Under TREC Rule 537.11(b)(5), your agent cannot draft escalation clause contract language for you. We can walk you through the concept and how it generally works in practice, but the actual clause needs to come from your attorney.
How to use this before you write your offer
- Pull the neighborhood’s median days on market for the last twelve months, not just the last thirty days. A short window can make a normal market look artificially hot or cold.
- Pull the subject home’s original list price and every price change since it went on the market. Your agent can get this from the MLS history in minutes.
- Find your neighborhood’s band in the tables above and treat it as a starting expectation, not a rule. It tells you what the market has been accepting, not what any one seller will accept.
- Adjust for the specific home. Condition, how it is priced against its own comps, and what you know about the seller’s circumstances all matter on top of the neighborhood baseline.
- Decide what you would actually pay to not lose this particular house, and let that number set your ceiling. Do not let the seller’s original asking price be the anchor that sets it for you.
One last honest caveat. A twelve month median is a baseline, not a forecast, and conditions can move quickly.
Closing thoughts
Ninety days on market is not bad luck, it is information. A neighborhood sitting at a 45 day median and one sitting at a 95 day median are not variations on the same negotiation. They are two different negotiations, and now you know which one you are actually in before you write your number.
You do not need more data than this, and you should not have to guess. Pull the listing’s original list price and its neighborhood’s twelve month median days on market, and you will know within a few percentage points what this seller can actually accept. For the most current numbers across the metro, see our monthly market report. Want a second opinion before you submit? Talk to a Specialist. Send us the address you are considering and we will pull its full price history and its neighborhood’s numbers so your offer comes from the same data behind this post, not a guess.
Ready to start your home search?
Frequently asked questions
It depends heavily on the specific neighborhood. Across the Austin area, the sales weighted median home closes at about 94.4 percent of its original asking price, but that ranges from 100 percent in the tightest neighborhoods down to 81 percent in the slowest moving ones. Check the neighborhood’s own recent days on market before settling on a number.
No. In many Austin area neighborhoods right now, homes are routinely closing well below their original asking price, which means sellers there have already shown flexibility. An offer grounded in real market data is a normal opening position, not an insult.
It is the best free signal available of how much room a seller may have. Across 464 Austin area neighborhoods, the correlation between median days on market and how far below original asking price homes close is a strong negative 0.686.
There is no fixed cutoff, but the data shows a clear pattern. Neighborhoods with a median of 30 days or fewer are closing at 96 to 98 percent of original asking. Neighborhoods sitting at a median of 90 days or more are closing closer to 89 percent.
Original list price is the very first number a seller asked when the home hit the market. Current list price can be lower if the seller has already cut the price along the way. A home can look firm against its current list price and still be well below where it started.
The slowest moving parts of the metro right now, including neighborhoods around Lago Vista, Liberty Hill, and Spicewood, where the sales weighted median days on market runs from 66 to 90 days. The specific neighborhoods with the widest gaps are listed in the tables above.
New construction behaves a little differently, because builders tend to protect their posted price with incentives like rate buydowns rather than a visible cut. Our companion piece on Austin new construction price cuts breaks down what buyers actually paid in 25 Austin area builder communities.
Yes, especially in a fast moving neighborhood. Only 17 of the 464 neighborhoods in this analysis closed at 99 percent or more of original asking, and in those, a lowball offer usually just loses out to a cleaner one while you wait on a counter.
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