Published September 27, 2026 in Market Update

Bidding Wars Ended in Southlake 169 Days Ago

By Amy Spock

Real estate, Custom Data CSV

People still talk about bidding wars like they are part of the deal here. Price it right and someone will go over. Maybe two someones. That was true for a while. I pulled every listing in this market through September 25, 2026, and here is what the numbers actually show.

The last bidding war was 169 days ago, and nothing since has come close

In this market, I count a bidding war as a lived-in home that sold 3% or more over its asking price. New builds are left out because their price climbs with upgrades, which is a different thing. By that measure, three homes in this file had a true bidding war. The biggest went $130,000 over asking. The last one, on La Salle Lane, went $105,000 over asking and went under contract April 9.

After that day, 18 more lived-in homes went under contract. Not one of them sold over asking. That is 169 days without a single bidding war in this market.

One fair note: the file only shows the sale price once a sale closes. Homes that went under contract in the last few weeks may not have closed yet, so they are not counted. That is not enough to change the picture.

Does the speed of the market tell a different story?

Sellers sometimes read a fast sale as proof a bidding war is coming. And this market does move fast. The typical lived-in home sold in 14 days. Homes that went under contract in the first week of being listed had a typical sold price of exactly 100% of what they first asked. That is a strong market. But 100% is not 103%. There is a real difference between a clean, full-price sale and a buyer who goes over.

The homes priced under $1.25M sold in a typical 9 days and got 98.7% of their last asking price. The homes priced from $1.25M to $2M took a typical 18 days and got 97.4% of what they first asked. Fast does not mean over asking.

Look at how the market shifted across the file. From July 2025 to February 2026, the typical home took 32 days to sell and sellers got 94.2% of what they first asked. From February 2026 to September 2026, the typical home sold in 10 days and sellers got 98.5% of what they first asked. That is a real improvement. Prices firmed up, days on market dropped, and sellers gave back less. But even in that stronger second half, no home sold more than 3% over asking after April 9. A faster market and a bidding-war market are not the same thing.

June 2026 was the sharpest month in the file. The typical home sold in 4 days and got 99.9% of what the seller first asked. That is as close to a bidding-war market as this data shows, and it still did not cross the line. The gap between 99.9% and 103% is small in percentage terms and large in dollars at these price levels.

What this means for you, whether you are selling or buying

If you are selling, the number that matters most right now is your first asking price. 25.9% of homes for sale today have already dropped their price. The typical cut is $60,100, and the biggest single cut on the market right now is $304,000, on King Ranch Road. A price that needs cutting is a price that started wrong. The market is not broken, but it is not going to bail out an aggressive number the way it did before April.

If you are buying, you have more room than you would have had in the spring. The typical home is selling for 97.4% of what it first asked. That gap is real and it is yours to use. Rates are not helping: the 30-year fixed averaged 7.03% as of September 24, 2026, up from 6.95% the week before and well above the 6.30% a year ago, according to Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey. Factor that into what you can spend, and do not plan your offer around a bidding war that is not coming.