The Cost of Overpricing Your Austin Home: A $345,000 Lesson

Of every Travis County homeowner who finally sold in the last six months after a prior failed listing, 83 percent would have netted more money by pricing at market on day one. The typical cost of holding out: $345,000 plus a year and a half of waiting. That is not a guess. That is what the MLS data says when you actually run the counterfactual on 982 closings (based on Neuhaus Realty Group analysis of MLS data, pulled 2026-05-17).

Sounds like a lot right. It is a lot. And honestly the number surprised me too when I ran it (I expected a painful number, I did not expect a third of a million dollars painful). But the math is the math, so lets walk through it.

What I Actually Looked At

Here is the setup. I pulled every Travis County home that closed between November 17, 2025 and May 17, 2026. Then I filtered that list down to parcels where the seller had at least one previously failed attempt to sell since 2020. Expired listings, withdrawn listings, the works. 982 homes met the criteria after I dropped the noise (lot-only data, obvious entry errors, anything under $100K).

For each home I asked one simple question. If they had priced at market on the day they first listed, what would they have netted? I built that counterfactual the boring way. Comps in the same zip code, same square footage band (within 25 percent), closed within 90 days of the original list date, minimum three comps required. Then I added a conservative 1 percent annual holding cost for taxes, insurance, and maintenance during the wait. That last number is actually generous to the chaser, because real carrying cost on a Travis County home is closer to 3 to 4 percent per year once you add up property taxes (1.8 to 2.2 percent), insurance, and maintenance.

Then I compared the counterfactual net to what they actually sold for. The result is the dollars they left on the table by overpricing.

If you have never seen this kind of analysis, the question it answers is “did chasing the market down actually work for these people.” Most of the advice you see on this topic is anecdotal. “Price it right, you’ll get more.” Ok, but how much more? On average, for a real cohort, with real numbers? That is what this is.

The Headline: 83 Percent of Sellers Came Out Behind

Out of 982 Travis County sellers who tried to hold the line and eventually capitulated, 811 of them would have netted more by pricing right the first time. 77 percent would have netted at least 10 percent more. The median price delta was $335,405. The median full delta with holding cost included was $345,734. And the median seller spent 1.41 years chasing the market down before finally getting a deal done. Average was 1.82 years.

A year and a half. Most of two summers of mowing the lawn, paying property taxes, staging for showings, and watching neighbors close at numbers you would not accept. For a median giveback of $345,000.

I know the question. “But Ed, what if they just held out a little longer, the market is coming back right?” Maybe. But here is the thing. The cohort I am looking at already DID hold out. They averaged almost two years of holding out. And they still capitulated. And they still left $345K on the table compared to the day-one market price.

Mid-Market Got Crushed. Luxury Was a Wash. Lake Travis Luxury Was the Exception.

This is the part where it gets interesting, because the average hides three completely different stories.

Under $1.5M sellers got destroyed. 88 percent of them would have netted more by pricing at market on day one. Median giveback: $352,000. This is the bulk of the Austin market, the move-up buyer pool, the bread and butter. And this is where pricing wrong is most expensive in absolute and percentage terms.

Over $1.5M was roughly break-even on price. Half the cohort came out ahead by waiting, half came out behind. The median price delta was almost zero. Add in holding cost and the typical luxury chaser still gave back $47K, but compared to mid-market that is noise.

But split the luxury cohort by school district and the story splits again.

Read that bottom row again. Lake Travis ISD luxury, the lake-view, big-lot, Westshore, Hudson Bend, Spicewood crowd. 18 closings. Median seller got $242,000 MORE by waiting than the comp-implied day-one market value. They are the one cohort in the data where chasing the market down actually paid.

Why? Two reasons (and I have an opinion on this so bear with me). One, the comp method I used understates true value for unique lake and view properties. There just are not three good comps for a custom waterfront with a private boat dock. So the counterfactual I built probably lowballs them. Two, the lake market held firm relative to in-town luxury through 2024 and 2025. While Eanes was watching its premium evaporate, Lakeshore was steady.

So if you are sitting on a unique LTISD luxury property over $1.5M with a real waterfront or true Hill Country view, holding out maybe makes sense. Everywhere else, it does not.

Why Sellers Anchor to the Peak Even When It Costs Them $400K

This is where Kahneman’s whole thing on anchoring kicks in. “Thinking Fast and Slow” has a chapter on it that real estate could have been the case study for. The first number you see becomes the gravity well for every decision that follows. Your neighbor closed at $1.4M in 2021. Your house is bigger. So your house is $1.5M. Period. Even when the data says it is $1.05M today, your brain wants to drag the number back toward 1.5.

I see this on listing appointments constantly. Someone shows me what their neighbor closed at three years ago. I show them what closed last quarter. They nod, they agree, they get it intellectually. Then they ask me to list at the 2021 number anyway “just to see.”

The “just to see” listing is what becomes the failed listing on this report. Sixty-two percent of failed listings in my Travis cohort were priced above market at the time they hit the MLS. Above $1.5M it was 80 to 100 percent. Every single one of the 18 Lake Travis ISD luxury homes that eventually sold last six months had originally been priced higher than comps supported (and yes, those are the same 18 that came out ahead by waiting, so the lake is genuinely an exception, but the rest of the luxury market is not).

The other thing happening here is loss aversion. Same Kahneman idea, flip side. If your neighbor got $1.4M and you “only” get $1.05M, that feels like a $350K loss even though you never had the $1.4M to begin with. The brain treats foregone gains as losses. So sellers refuse to “lose” by accepting today’s market, not realizing the actual loss is happening every month they hold out.

What the Price Cut Cycle Actually Looks Like

I pulled the verification chain on one Austin home, 4405 Hennig Drive. Here is the sequence:

• Listed May 2024 at $4.862M. Withdrew October 2024.
• Relisted May 2025 at $4.49M, eventually cut to $3.749M. Expired January 2026.
• Relisted January 2026 at $3.749M. Currently under contract.

Peak to current: down 22.9 percent. Two prior failed attempts. Roughly 20 months between first list and offer in hand. Sits squarely in the $3-5M bracket where Travis sold-cohort median is down 30.5 percent off peak. So they are still negotiating from a stronger spot than most, but they paid for that 22.9 percent in time, taxes, and probably a fair amount of stress.

The pattern repeats across the standout examples. 1107 W 31st in Tarrytown: peak $4.1M, sold $1.98M, down 52 percent, 7 prior failed attempts, closed April 2026. 1701 Stanley Avenue in 78745: still chasing, peak $3.4M, current $1.0M, down 71 percent, 2 attempts and counting. These are not bad properties. They are not in bad areas. They are just priced like it is 2021.

(Sidebar, and this is the part that nobody likes to hear. The price you see on Zillow when you log in is not the market. It is a model. And every price cut you take on the MLS feeds back into the model. So the cut is doing double damage. You took the cut on your house, and you just told every algorithm on the internet that your house is worth less, which then changes the comps for your neighbors. The market reprices to the cuts, not to the original asks.)

The Six Point Gap

Here is one more number worth understanding. The 2,232 Travis homes currently Active right now after at least one prior failed listing are sitting at a median 15.4 percent below their peak ask. The 494 Travis homes that actually closed in the last six months after a prior failed listing sold at a median 21.4 percent below peak.

That gap, 6 percentage points, is the cost of conviction. The currently-active sellers have not yet hit the number where a buyer says yes. The sold cohort already found out what number that was. And it was 6 points lower than where most active sellers currently sit.

If you are listed today after a prior failure, and you are 15 percent below peak, the data says you probably still have another 6 points to give. Average cohort. Your house may be different. But the central tendency is clear.

If You Are Selling Right Now, Here Is What To Do

Lets keep this practical.

Look at closings from the last 90 days, not the last three years. Anything older than 90 days in this market is fiction. The market shifted faster than most sellers realize. Pulling a comp from 2022 and using it as your anchor is how you end up in the 88 percent who would have netted more pricing right. Our existing post on Austin home seller pricing strategy walks through the comp-pulling process in more detail.

Get a real CMA, not a Zestimate. And get it from someone who will tell you the truth even when the truth is annoying. A good agent will give you a number that gets you to a closing in 30 days. A bad agent will tell you whatever number gets the listing. The difference between the two is roughly $345,000 in your cohort.

Understand the appraisal floor. Even if you find a buyer who agrees with your aspirational price, their lender’s appraiser will not. Appraisers pull the exact same 90-day comps I just told you to pull. If those comps do not support your number, the deal blows up at the appraisal contingency. Cash buyers are rarer at the high end than sellers think.

Price for traffic in the first two weeks. The most attention your listing will ever get is the first 10 to 14 days. If you price 10 percent over market hoping for “negotiation room,” what you actually get is no showings, no offers, and a stale listing by week three. Then you cut. Then the market notices you cut. Then you cut again. That is the cycle that ends with you being one of the 982 in the data.

If you are not under pressure to sell, do not sell. This sounds obvious but I am going to say it anyway. The capitulators in the data sold because they had to. Job relocation, divorce, estate, downsizing, whatever. If you can keep living in your house, keep living in your house. The math only works against you if you actually need a closing. Renting it for a year or two while the market recovers is a legitimate option I run with clients all the time (especially if you can clear the mortgage and walk with some monthly cash flow, in which case the property pays you to wait).

If You Are Buying Right Now

Quick note for buyers and then I will get out of your way. Pull MLS history on any home you are looking at. If it has prior failed listings, the seller is statistically more negotiable than the asking price suggests, and gets more negotiable every month it sits. The longer the chase, the closer they are to the capitulation point.

This is not me telling you to lowball every listing (lowballs get rejected and waste your inspection week). It is me telling you that the second-time and third-time relisting of a home should not get the same offer the first-time fresh listing would. The data backs you up.

The Bottom Line

83 percent of recent Travis County sellers who had previously failed to sell would have netted more money pricing at market on day one. The median giveback was $345,000 over 17 months. Under $1.5M the number gets worse, not better. Over $1.5M it is mostly a wash, with Lake Travis luxury being the one exception where chasing actually paid.

If you are about to list and your agent is telling you a number that does not match comps from the last 90 days, get a second opinion. The cost of being wrong is bigger than most sellers realize until they are 18 months and three price cuts into it.

I have been doing this in Austin since 2007. I have closed over 2,000 properties and over $250M in production. I will tell you what your house is worth today, not what your neighbor’s house was worth in 2021. If that is a conversation worth having, reach out through our contact page and lets talk.

Lets Talk About Your House

If you are thinking about selling in Austin, Westlake, Lakeway, Bee Cave, Spicewood, or anywhere else in the Hill Country, I will give you an honest read on what your house is worth today. Not a Zestimate. A real CMA with real recent comps and a real opinion attached.

Reach out through our contact page or call our office at (512) 366-3270.