Texas Luxury Agents Predict Growth in 2026 After Mixed Year

With the hot spring season starting, Texas’ luxury residential agents expect steadily climbing sales after a year of mixed results.

Texas luxury sales hit a new high water mark in 2025, with the number of residential sales above $1 million reaching a record 14,400 homes, according to Texas Realtors data. However, last year marked a recovery period after the whipsawing demand of the early 2020s. Inventory grew marginally, listings sat longer, and the number of deals rose at a slower rate, all resembling the steadier pace of the pre-pandemic market.

With the finance industry’s continued growth in Dallas, relocators’ renewed interest in Austin, and a shock to the oil business that could benefit the energy sector in Houston, luxury agents in the state’s primary luxury metros are optimistic about 2026.

Dallas

Retaining the dominance it showed in 2024, Dallas had the most expensive residential deals in Texas last year and excelled in ultra-luxury sales. The priciest home sold for $30.5 million. Some agents see Y’all Street as an avenue to continued growth in the luxury market.

“With all the financial companies coming here, with the new Texas stock exchange, with people like Goldman Sachs coming here, I just feel good about the kind of people that are coming to Dallas,” said Pogir Pogir, a Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty agent who goes by one name. Pogir has the state’s most expensive listing, a $64 million mansion at 5619 Walnut Hill Lane.

Along with NYSE-Texas, NASDAQ and the Texas Stock Exchange, other relocations or expansions to Dallas in the finance business include Scotiabank and Deloitte. Businesses already established in Dallas, such as Bank of America, are also growing their rosters.

“I’m expecting it to be one of my best years this year,” Pogir said.

Austin

Unlike Dallas with financial firms, Austin’s housing market doesn’t benefit from a particular industry — at least, not since Big Tech swarmed the city with coastal relocators in 2021 and 2022, according to Amy Deane, the 2025 top producer by sales volume at Moreland Properties.

Since then, fewer out-of-staters have entered the Austin luxury residential scene. That’s starting to change this year, Deane said.

“Last year, I had 52 transactions, and probably 90 percent of them were from in-state local buyers just moving. This year, every single transaction I have pending is an out-of-state buyer,” Deane said.

In addition, while luxury buyers generally don’t rely on conventional mortgages, a more favorable lending environment can boost luxury sales, according to Deane.

“When interest rates adjust, I do see a little bit more market movement, because even in ultra-luxury, while people may be writing offers, paying cash for them, they’re still financing the homes behind the scenes or post-close,” Deane said.

“When those interest rates are lower, they feel like it’s a good time to buy because they can put their money into other investments that will make more,” she added.

And aside from Silicon Valley buzz that subsided after the pandemic, the Austin area is seeing sustained interest from native Dell and branches of IBM and Samsung.

While homes priced between $2 million and $7 million are starting to loosen up, the ultra-luxury market “seems to still be a little bit slower,” Deane said.

Houston

Luxury buyers in Houston include members of the aerospace industry and the medical field, but the city’s priciest neighborhoods are closely tied to the energy business. Reuters found in 2016 that swings in oil prices have directly affected mansion prices in Houston for decades, with an oil price drop in 2014 depressing the values of expensive homes more than those of the overall market.

The city’s industry has diversified considerably since then, with the energy industry accounting for just 8 percent of the greater Houston area’s employment in 2020, according to Moody’s. However, the conflict in Iran has squeezed oil supply and driven crude oil prices past $100 barrel for the first time since 2022, quickly reversing a 2025 decline.

Developers are also testing Houston’s appetite for luxury condos. Branded residential towers are in development in the Montrose, River Oaks and Memorial Park areas, with units in the upcoming Ritz-Carlton tower on Post Oak Boulevard asking as much as $30 million, more than the most expensive single-family homes ever sold on the Multiple Listing Service in Houston.

“The demand for high-rise living with hotel-style amenities and resort-inspired outdoor spaces will continue to climb,” predicted Compass agent Laura Sweeney, Houston’s top producer according to RealTrends, in Compass’ annual Ultra-Luxury Report.

Houston’s notorious sprawl yielded the country’s biggest metropolitan housing inventory last year with almost 44,000 homes on the shelf by the end of the summer, resulting in stagnating average housing prices. However, sale prices rose in the River Oaks and Memorial neighborhoods, the city’s two preeminent luxury enclaves. The city’s top residential sale last year was a River Oaks mansion asking $18.9 million at the time of sale in July.