Houston Buyers Came Back. The Prices Didn’t.

01 · Market Pulse

First, what’s happening right now: buyers didn’t leave

As of this week, more Houston homes are under contract than closed in all of last month.

Forget the two-month-old closing reports for a second — here is the freshest read we have. As of May 30, 7,229 Houston single-family and condo homes are under contract: signed, in escrow, not yet closed. That is 12% more than the 6,458 that actually closed in May, and another 559 are listed “coming soon.” When the pipeline of pending deals is fuller than last month’s closings, demand is not fading — it is still flowing. Homes are moving on it, too: the typical Houston home now goes under contract in 26 days, down from 35 back in March. This is the part that looks genuinely healthy. Hold onto it, because the next charts complicate the story.

02 · Market Pulse

The spring surge, in context

Closings jumped 28% into March, then settled to a steady ~6,500-a-month spring pace.

Zoom out to the monthly closings and you can see the spring wake-up. After a sleepy winter — fewer than 5,000 Houston homes closed in January — March roared to 7,501 closed sales, up 28% in a single month. May then settled back to 6,458 (late-May deals are still finalizing, so that figure will tick up). The shape is normal spring seasonality, not a boom and not a bust. The headline “closings” number is the one that makes news, but on its own it tells you how busy the market is — not how strong. For that, you have to look at price.

03 · Market Pulse

Now the part that lagged: prices bounced, but didn’t catch up

The median home sold for $162/sqft — up off the winter low, but still 2.7% cheaper per foot than last May.

Price per square foot is the cleanest way to compare homes of different sizes — think of it as the market’s unit price. Houston’s peaked at $167 last June, slid to a $158 trough in February, and has since recovered to $162 in May. That bounce is the spring at work. But here is the catch: $162 is still 2.7% below last May’s $166. So even with buyers active and homes selling quickly, each square foot is fetching a little less than it did a year ago. The good news for sellers is the trend is pointing up again; the reality is it hasn’t reclaimed last year’s ground. Volume came back; full pricing power did not.

04 · Market Pulse

Where buyers have the most room: price cuts

Nearly 1 in 3 active listings have cut their price — and the cheaper the home, the more often it happens.

This is the clearest sign of who holds leverage right now. Of every active Houston listing, 30.6% have already dropped their asking price at least once, with a median cut of $17,000 (about 4.5%). And the pattern is lopsided: roughly a third of homes under $500K have cut, versus fewer than 1 in 5 above $1M. Entry-level and mid-priced sellers are competing hardest for a thinner pool of qualified buyers, so they blink first. If you’re shopping under $500K, the asking price is more of an opening offer than a final answer.

05 · Market Pulse

The one number still on the seller’s side

At 2.8 months of supply, Houston is still technically a seller’s market — just a looser one.

“Months of supply” answers a simple question: at today’s sales pace, how long until every home for sale is gone? Under about 4 months is usually called a seller’s market; 4–6 is balanced; above 6 favors buyers. Houston sits at 2.8 — still tight, which is why this isn’t a crash. But inventory has been climbing (now 17,800+ homes for sale and rising), so that cushion is slowly deflating. The takeaway: supply still leans seller, while price cuts and softer $/sqft lean buyer. That tension is the whole story.

06 · Market Pulse

Your move: a map of where the leverage is

The busy under-$350K bands cut most often and sit longest — that’s where buyers have the most room.

Put the two leverage signals on one map: how often a price band cuts (across the bottom) and how long its homes take to sell (up the side). Top-right is buyer territory — slow and discount-prone. Bottom-left is seller territory — fast and firm. Houston’s entry and mid bands ($200–350K especially) land top-right: they carry the most inventory, cut most often, and take the longest to sell, so buyers there can push hardest. Luxury ($1M+) sits bottom-left — it sells in under two weeks and rarely discounts. Buyer playbook: target stale listings, lead with the price-cut data, and don’t fear a below-ask offer under $500K. Seller playbook: price to today, not to last year’s peak, and expect sharper pushback the longer you sit.

Houston is not frozen. It is active — but pricing power has shifted toward buyers.