Houston Market Report · March 2026
The Houston Market in February 2026
Home prices hit a two-year low in February, and days on market reached their slowest pace since 2013 — but Houston's own chief economist says the market already bottomed years ago and is simply back to normal.
The Numbers
February brought Houston's slowest home-price levels in two years. The median sale price fell 0.9% year over year to $322,078, and homes took an average of 69 days to sell — the longest stretch since March 2013. Single-family sales dipped 2.2% to 5,918 homes, even as pending sales rose 13.0%, a sign buyers were still actively writing offers even as closings lagged.
The context matters here more than the headline. HAR's own chief economist made a pointed comparison: while U.S. existing-home sales remain down nearly 25% from pre-pandemic 2019 levels, Houston's sales volume over the past 12 months has already returned to normal, pre-pandemic norms. In other words, national coverage of a 'slow' housing market doesn't describe Houston — Houston isn't struggling to recover, it's already recovered and settling into a steadier, more typical pace.
Inventory kept building, too — active listings rose 15.2% to 35,128 homes, pushing supply to 4.8 months against a national average of 3.7. That gap between Houston and the rest of the country is the real February story: buyers here have meaningfully more selection, and more time to use it, than buyers almost anywhere else.
A Slower Pace Isn't a Weak Market
For buyers, 69 days on market is real breathing room — the kind of window where you can order an inspection, negotiate repairs, and walk away from a home that isn't right without worrying it'll be gone tomorrow.
For sellers, the read is straightforward: your home is genuinely competing with more alternatives than it was a year ago, so the homes that still moved quickly in February were priced at real comps and marketed well, not left to coast on a hot market that no longer exists the way it did a few years back.
Either way, don't read national headlines about a struggling housing market and assume they apply here — Houston's own numbers say the opposite. The conversation worth having is about your specific neighborhood's pace, not the national one.
Sales data sourced from the Houston Association of Realtors' (HAR) monthly Housing Market Update, covering February 2026. Shopping in the luxury tier instead? See our Luxury Market Report.
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