Flat Market – But Harder For Sellers

North Texas Home Prices Necessarily Aren’t Falling.

Sellers Are Just Working Harder to Keep Them.

 It’s harder for sellers specifically — buyers are actually having an easier time of it.

Here’s the mechanism: the sale price hasn’t moved ($425,000 median, flat YoY), but sellers are working harder to protect that number. More than half of sales now involve a seller-paid concession (up from about half a year ago), and the median concession size jumped from $0 to $875. Price per square foot also slipped about 2%, meaning buyers are getting somewhat more house for the same dollar. None of that shows up as a lower headline price — it shows up as extra negotiating a seller has to do behind the scenes to land at the same number.

If you’ve been reading headlines about North Texas home prices tanking, here’s a reality check straight from closed transaction data: median sale price in Collin, Denton, Fannin, and Grayson Counties (excluding Dallas proper) hasn’t moved. $425,000 this year, $425,000 a year ago. Same number.

What has changed is how sellers are getting there.

Pulling closed sales from the last 30 days and comparing them to the same 30-day window a year ago, across single-family homes on 1-to-3-acre lots under 4,500 square feet, three things stand out:

• Transaction volume is down almost 12%. Fewer homes are closing. That part of the “slower market” narrative is accurate.
• Seller concessions have roughly doubled in frequency and size. A year ago, the median seller paid $0 toward buyer costs at closing. This year, that median is $875, and the share of sales involving any concession climbed from about half to over half. Sellers aren’t cutting price — they’re negotiating differently.
• Price per square foot actually dropped about 2%, even though the flat-out sale price didn’t. Buyers appear to be getting a bit more house for the same money, not a cheaper house outright.

Days on market, meanwhile, actually improved slightly — homes are closing about two days faster than a year ago, at a median of 35 days versus 37.

Why this matters if you’re selling

A flat median price sounds like good news, and it partly is. But if you price a listing today assuming last year’s negotiating environment, you’ll misjudge what it takes to get to the closing table. More buyers are asking for concessions, and more sellers are granting them. Pricing sharp and building in some room for buyer asks is a more realistic strategy right now than pricing high and holding firm.

Comps that your agent shows you to base a list price on only show you the number that closed — the sale price. They don’t show you what the seller had to give up to get there. That’s exactly the gap this data uncovered: median close price is flat year-over-year ($425,000 both years), but the share of sales involving a seller-paid concession jumped from about half to over half, and the median concession went from $0 to $875. A seller pulling comps today and seeing “still selling at $425K” would reasonably conclude the market feels the same as last year. It doesn’t — they’re now more likely to also cover part of the buyer’s closing costs, a rate buydown, or a repair credit to get to that number.

Comps tell you the destination, not the cost of the trip. A seller who prices off last year’s comps without accounting for today’s negotiating environment will either get blindsided at the negotiating table or leave money on the table by not planning for concessions upfront. This post is meant to interrupt someone who’s about to make a pricing decision based on an incomplete number, not to accuse comps of being inaccurate as data. The close price is real; it’s just not the whole story anymore.

Why this matters if you’re buying

You’re not walking into a market where prices are crashing in your favor. But you are walking into one where asking for closing cost help, a rate buydown contribution, or a repair credit is a normal, expected part of the conversation — not an insult to the seller.

Holding a price point that looks unchanged on paper now costs more effort and more money out of pocket than it did a year ago. A seller who assumes “same price means same market” is missing that they’re now more likely to be asked for — and to grant — help with closing costs, a rate buydown, or repairs, just to get the deal to close at the number they wanted.

For buyers, it’s the opposite story: same price, but more leverage to ask for concessions and a decent chance of getting them.

The lesson underneath all of it: national headlines about “the housing market” and even county-level averages from sites like Redfin or Zillow can miss what’s actually happening in the specific segment of homes people are buying and selling day to day. Real numbers, pulled from actual closed transactions in your specific area and price band, tell a more precise story than a broad metro average ever will.

If you want to know what this means for your specific listing or your specific search, that’s a conversation worth having before you set a price or write an offer.

Source: NTREIS closed-transaction data, Collin/Denton/Fannin/Grayson Counties (excluding Dallas), single-family homes, 1-3 acre lots, ≤4,500 SqFt, ≤6 beds. Comparison periods: Aug 12–Sep 10, 2026 vs. Aug 12–Sep 11, 2025.