When someone asks me if it’s a buyer’s market, my answer is always the same: what are you buying, and where? A single-family home, a condo and a duplex can sit in completely different markets on the same street. The thing most people get wrong is assuming the whole Metroplex moves together. It doesn’t, and it never has.
The big-picture numbers are real. Across Dallas County, single-family homes had about a four-month supply in August, right on the line between a seller’s market and a balanced one, while DFW condominiums were sitting at 8.7 months.1 We walked through the national, Texas and Dallas numbers on Episode 360 of our show and in our Homeownership 101 guide. But an average won’t sell your house or buy you one. Your street will.
01
One ZIP code, two markets
Take 75230, around Preston Royal. Same ZIP code, same schools, same grocery stores. In September, houses and condos there were in two different worlds.
| 75230, September 2026 | Months of supply |
|---|---|
| Single-family homes | 5.7 |
| Condominiums | 9.8 |
NTREIS data, September 2026.2
At 5.7 months, a house in 75230 is in a balanced market. At 9.8 months, a condo a few blocks away is in a buyer’s market by any yardstick. If you’re selling either one, the conversation we have with you is completely different, and so is the price.
02
Where buyers have the upper hand
Condos. Across most of Dallas, condos are where buyers have the most room to negotiate. There are more of them for sale than there are buyers ready to write offers.
New construction in the suburbs. Think Forney, Prosper and Celina. The builders out there have big sales machines that they want to keep feeding, even when the market slows down. That way, when the market turns back up, they’re still running at full force. To keep homes moving, they can offer buyers incentives that an individual resale seller simply can’t match, like help with the rate or the closing costs. If you’re a buyer and you’re open to new construction, that’s leverage. If you’re selling a resale home in one of those areas, that’s your competition.
03
Where sellers still win
Here’s the other side, and it’s why I tell people not to believe the headlines. When I went through the September sales data, the homes still getting full price or better fell into a few clear profiles.3
Entry-level original ranches: 75229, 75218 and 75248
These are 1955 to 1965 builds, three bedrooms, about 1,400 to 2,300 square feet. The best ones sell in days at full price. Four Kenilworth and Royal Hills homes on Whitehall and Waldorf closed at exactly list price in zero to three days, at around $283 a square foot. Only about one in five of these sellers paid any concessions.
M Streets and Lakewood character homes
These are houses from the 1920s through the 1950s. In the $900,000 to $1.3 million band of 75206, half sold at or above their original list price. A home on Vickery Boulevard went from $935,000 to $990,000 in one day. One on Goliad went from $899,000 to $931,000 in three days. These are the only homes in the city I see consistently getting over asking, at about $455 a square foot.
Lake Highlands family homes
Four bedrooms, about 2,000 square feet, in the $650,000 to $750,000 range. Several closed in zero to two days, near full price. Families want Lake Highlands, and there still aren’t enough of these houses to go around.
Preston Hollow luxury in 75225
Homes over $2 million, about 5,900 square feet on average, and 72% of them with a pool. These sellers had the lowest concession rate in the city, about 6%. Some sold over list in days: a home on Joyce Way went from $2.0 million to $2.11 million, and one on Prestonshire went from $2.95 million to $3.0 million.
75229 between $1.3 and $2 million
Nearly half of these are new or recent builds over 4,000 square feet. The well-priced ones sell in one to four weeks. Remodeled originals can still beat list: a home on Reaumur went from $1.295 million to $1.45 million. If you’re in 75229 and wondering what yours is worth, this is the band to watch.
It’s a buyer’s market for some homes and a seller’s market for others. The only answer that matters is the one for yours.
04
Selling a condo right now
If you’re selling a condo in a market with nine or ten months of supply, the most important thing you can do is list at a price that reflects real comparable sales in your own complex. Not the building down the street, and not what your neighbor got in 2022. Buyers can see every unit that’s for sale in your building, and they will compare.
A condo priced above the sales in its own complex doesn’t just sit. It becomes the unit that makes everyone else look like a good deal. We go through how we set that number on how we price a home.
05
Buying a condo right now
This is where buyers hold the cards, so here’s how to play them.
Be ready before you negotiate. Be fully credit approved, or have your cash fully documented, so the seller knows you’re a serious buyer. A seller will take a lower number from someone who can actually close.
Look at what has been sitting. Find the condos that have been on the market a while, and it’s even better if they haven’t had a price reduction in a bit. That seller has been waiting, and that gives you more room to negotiate.
Don’t be afraid to walk away. If the numbers don’t work, say so and leave. In a market like this one, you can always come back next week.
06
Leverage has limits
A buyer’s market doesn’t mean every ask lands. We had an unrepresented buyer come to us wanting a really good deal on one of our condo listings. We followed up a few times after the showing, and he finally told us he’d changed his mind and moved on.
A month later, we received an offer from him, now with an agent, asking the seller to pay that agent’s commission on top of everything else. The price he offered could have worked. Asking the seller to also cover his agent is what sank it.4
The lesson for buyers: know which ask matters most to you, and don’t stack so many that the seller stops listening. How your own agent gets paid is something to settle in writing before you start looking, which we cover on our buying with us page.
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