When the San Antonio Board of REALTORS® published its September 2026 numbers, one line in the Texas Public Radio story that followed was easy to remember. The station reported that "about nine out of 10 sellers are getting their original asking price."
SABOR's own September 2026 release says something different. In September 2026, homes in the San Antonio area closed at an average of 92.4% of their original list price. That is a price ratio. It does not count how many sellers got what they asked. It measures how far the average closing price landed below the first number on the listing. In September that distance was 7.6 percentage points.
For a homeowner deciding on an asking price this fall, the measuring point matters most. The ratio is calculated from the original list price, so every reduction a listing takes on its way to a contract is already inside it. Right now the forces that widen that gap are getting stronger.
A ratio that starts counting on listing day
On a hypothetical home first listed at $400,000, a 92.4% outcome means a closing price of about $369,600. That is roughly $30,400 below the first ask. The ratio cannot show how the $30,400 accumulated. One seller might have cut the price twice before an offer arrived. Another might have held the price for weeks and then negotiated hard once a buyer appeared. Both cases land in the same average.
Public data does not split those paths. SABOR's public market statistics page describes its monthly releases as summaries of sales and prices. Its more detailed market reports are available only to members who log in. No public September 2026 figure separates sale-to-last-list from sale-to-original-list for San Antonio.
That gives the original asking price a weight of its own. It is the baseline the whole outcome is measured against, and the market around it is changing quickly.
One month, and the gap widened
Put August and September 2026 side by side, and the ratio is slipping while buyer commitments fall faster than seller supply.
| San Antonio area, SABOR | August 2026 | September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Sale price as % of original list | 92.8% | 92.4% |
| Average days on market | 82, up 11% YoY | 88, up 11% YoY |
| Pending sales | 2,575, down 8% YoY | 2,091, down 16% YoY |
| New listings | 4,426, down 5% YoY | 4,172, up 3% YoY |
| Active listings | 16,940, steady | 17,155, up 4% YoY |
| Months of inventory | 5.87 | 5.95 |
The pending row carries the most information. A pending sale is a signed contract that has not closed, so it shows where closings are headed. In August, pendings ran 8% below the prior year. In September the decline doubled to 16%, while new listings turned positive at 3% growth. More sellers are entering, fewer buyers are committing, and the average listing now sits close to three months before it closes.
Closed sales have held up so far. SABOR counted 2,793 sales in September 2026, compared with 2,823 in September 2025. The median was $302,999, down about 2% from $308,995. Closings trail contracts, though, and the contract count is the figure falling fastest.
Read the August release with care. Its text says average and median prices were "unchanged" from August 2025. Its own table shows the average falling from $382,419 to $372,989 and the median from $310,000 to $299,275. The table is the more reliable figure.
How the time on market turns into price
The most recent statewide figures from the Texas A&M Texas Real Estate Research Center show how the gap builds. In July 2026, the median seller price cut in Texas was $13,000, equal to 3.6% of the initial list price. Homes that sold in July had spent an average of 63 days on the market. Homes still unsold at the end of July had been listed for 92 days.
Those are statewide numbers, not San Antonio's. The pattern still explains the local ratio. Unsold listings are the ones that have been listed longest, and long-listed homes are the ones taking reductions. A 3.6% statewide median cut equals almost half of San Antonio's 7.6-point gap from original list in September. Whatever the local split between cuts and negotiation, reductions are clearly a large part of how the ratio drops.
The same report put the San Antonio metro at a 6.2-month supply in July 2026, with active inventory up 4.4% year over year. Its San Antonio home-price index was down 1.1% from a year earlier, a smaller decline than June's 1.7%. Prices are softening slowly. The extra time on market is where sellers who start too high lose ground.
Bexar County is selling more homes at lower prices
Inside the SABOR region, Bexar County moved in the opposite direction from the headline sales number. In September 2026, Bexar recorded 1,839 single-family sales, up 6% from a year earlier. Over the same month the median price fell 4.8% to $282,680 and the average fell 3.8% to $333,434, with 5.4 months of inventory. August followed the same pattern, with Bexar sales up 8.8% and the median down 3.1% to $280,999.
Rising volume with falling prices points to a market that clears when the price meets the buyer. Bexar buyers are still signing and closing, at numbers below last year's. SABOR's quarterly county reports show the same trend over a longer period. Bexar's quarterly median fell from $293,832 in Q2 2026 to $286,497 in Q3 2026, while days on market barely changed, going from 73 to 74. SABOR calculates those quarterly figures as the median of monthly medians. Homes are selling about as fast as they did last quarter, at somewhat lower prices.
The Q3 report also shows how much prices vary by county. Kendall County's Q3 2026 median was $587,483, with homes averaging 80 days on market. A regional average of 92.4% combines markets with very different price levels and buyer pools, so any single home's position against that average depends on the local comparable sales around it.
The August price bands show where most of the activity is. In August 2026, 66.73% of SABOR-area sales fell between $200,000 and $499,999. Another 16.07% were at $199,000 or below, 10.47% were between $500,000 and $749,999, and 6.73% were at $750,000 or above. Earlier in the year, the San Antonio Report reported CoStar analyst Danny Khalil's view that demand under $300,000 was weaker, and that north and northwest prices had held up better than east and southeast prices. That March 2026 analysis came before the current data, so it gives background rather than a current reading.
What the board's chair is emphasizing
SABOR's 2026 chair, Ed Zapata, has kept the same focus through both fall releases. In September he advised sellers to look at current comparable sales and set a realistic price from the start. In the TPR report, he described the larger pressure on buyers this way:
"While mortgage rates around 7% certainly impact purchasing power, the bigger issue for San Antonio buyers continues to be overall affordability, including home prices, property taxes and insurance."
This connects to the earlier numbers. Buyers who are weighing taxes and insurance along with the price are looking at the whole monthly cost of a home. With close to six months of inventory, they have time to compare. A listing priced above recent comps is easy for those buyers to pass over. Each extra week on the market adds to the gap the original-list ratio eventually records.
For a seller, the practical point is that the first list price is part of the result. SABOR's ratio measures every sale against it. The statewide data shows that the homes still waiting are the long-listed ones, and the September pending count shows that fewer buyers are signing contracts. A first price based on current Bexar comps, rather than last year's numbers, gives the 7.6-point regional gap less room to build on that home. For more on how this works at the neighborhood level, our guide to pricing a Stone Oak home in today's market and our explainer on seller concessions in San Antonio cover the negotiation side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does 92.4% mean most San Antonio sellers got their asking price in September 2026? No. SABOR reports an average closing price equal to 92.4% of the original list price. The figure does not count how many sellers reached their asking price.
Why measure against the original list price instead of the final one? The original price shows the full distance from a seller's first ask to the closing price, including any reductions along the way. SABOR's public releases report only this version of the ratio.
Is the San Antonio market getting slower? In September 2026, days on market rose 11% year over year to 88, and pending sales fell 16%. Bexar County single-family sales rose 6% over the same period, at a median 4.8% lower than a year earlier.
When is the next update? SABOR released September's figures on October 9, 2026. The October numbers should follow next month, and they will show whether September's drop in pending sales has started to reduce closings.
If you are planning to list this fall and want to see where your first asking price stands against current Bexar County comparable sales, Trinie Johnson will walk you through the numbers before your home goes on the market. Request a Confidential Consultation, or start with a home valuation.
