Realtor.com's February analysis shows price cuts growing in Texas, Florida, and Arizona

The pandemic-era housing boom left a complicated legacy. In dozens of American cities, sellers spent years watching their home values balloon to heights that had little to do with local wages, mortgage affordability, or any durable shift in demand. They were prices built on migration patterns, remote-work windfalls, and historically low interest rates. 

None of those trends lasted — and now, the bill has come due.

Mortgage rates remain elevated. Insurance premiums, particularly in Sun Belt states, climbed sharply. Homeowners' association fees and property taxes followed prices upward, squeezing the pool of buyers who can realistically close a deal. Sellers who priced their homes against the memory of 2021 are discovering a much different market. Buyers have grown cautious. Days on market have stretched. And sellers, reluctantly or otherwise, are cutting.

The geographic clustering is striking. A Realtor.com analysis of February 2026 data found that at least one in five active listings in nine major U.S. metros carried a price reduction that month. What follows is a breakdown of those markets — what's driving the cuts, how deep they run, and what they signal about where residential real estate is heading.

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Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler posted the highest share of price reductions of any major U.S. metro in February 2026, with 28.2% of active listings marked down. Arizona real estate agent James Sanson told Realtor.com that the market had gone quiet. Homes were simply not moving. Sellers responded by targeting lower price brackets in order to expand the field of eligible buyers. A notable share of price cutters are seasonal visitors who spent winters in Phoenix during the pandemic years and decided to exit for good. Many bought at the height of the COVID spike and believe they are still sitting on gains, even after a reduction. Sanson said these owners want to get ahead of further depreciation and avoid chasing the market down. The result is a market where motivated sellers are actively undercutting each other, and the buyer holds considerable leverage.

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In the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area, 24.8% of listings clawed back prices in February. That's the second-highest rate among the nine markets tracked here. Many sellers in Tampa and across Florida are still pricing against the pandemic, Florida real estate agent and investor Ron Myers told Realtor.com, even as buyers have fundamentally changed their calculus. Higher interest rates have reduced purchasing power, and rising insurance costs have turned buyers into a pickier bunch. A small cut rarely shifts buyer behavior. Sellers who want results need to reprice with the current market in mind, not the one that existed three or four years ago.

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San Antonio-New Braunfels recorded a 22.6% price-cut rate in February, the highest of the three Texas metro areas in this analysis. Sellers are not helping themselves by benchmarking against other overpriced listings rather than actual sale prices, Real estate agent Danny Johnson told Realtor.com. When comparable homes are listed high, sellers interpret that as permission to do the same. The county's tax-assessed values compound the problem, keeping those figures elevated relative to what homes are actually closing for and giving sellers a distorted sense of what their property is worth. Johnson described it as a false signal that keeps asking prices above where the market will transact. The gap between expectation and reality is what ultimately forces the cut.

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Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, straddling Oregon and Washington state, matched Tucson at a 21.8% price-cut rate in February. Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com, said sellers who listed during the slower winter months are now recalibrating ahead of the spring inventory surge. As new listings come online, competition stiffens, and homes that failed to attract offers over the winter become increasingly exposed. Sellers who want to get out before fresh supply arrives have a narrow window to reprice. The dynamic is not unique to Portland, but the market's lingering winter listings and incoming wave of spring inventory make the timing particularly acute for sellers still holding out.

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Tucson posted the same 21.8% price-cut rate as Portland in February, placing both Arizona markets in the top tier of Realtor.com's analysis. The correction across Arizona mirrors the pattern described in Phoenix: Prices ran hard during the pandemic and demand retreated, leaving sellers to thread the needle between recouping gains and actually closing a sale. Agent James Sanson, who covers both markets, told the website that Arizona had grown quiet, with homes sitting longer and sellers increasingly willing to reduce. The buyers who remain active are deliberate and price-sensitive. Sellers who try to hold firm on pandemic-era valuations tend to lose out to those willing to move first — a dynamic that sustains the cutting cycle even as overall inventory builds.

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Jacksonville registered a 21.1% price-cut rate in February, joining Florida's sweep of the top nine. A surge of in-migration during the pandemic years drove prices sharply higher, but that wave has since receded. Ron Myers, who operates across Florida, said sellers are still chasing peak prices, ostracizing stretched buyers who now contend with higher rates and insurance costs. In Jacksonville specifically, the backlog of overpriced listings has been slow to clear. Sellers who cut meaningfully tend to move their homes; those who make token reductions stay on the market. The February data suggests more sellers are beginning to accept that a substantive reprice is the only path to a transaction.

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Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington posted a 21% price-cut rate in February as part of a broader Texas correction that also touched San Antonio and Austin. Michael Reisor, founder of Reisor Team at Compass in Texas, told Realtor.com that winter listings in Texas often face a strategic deadline. As spring approaches and new inventory enters the market, homes that passed January or February without attracting offers come under pressure. Listing agents advising sellers to cut now are making a timing argument: better to adjust before the spring surge than to compete against a fresh wave of homes at similar price points. Reisor framed the current cuts less as distress and more as tactical positioning.

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Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford recorded a 20.7% price-cut rate in February, and the explanation is stark. Orlando real estate agent Brenden Rendo told Realtor.com that the migration wave that once drove the market has collapsed, dropping more than 80% over two years. During the pandemic, a steady stream of buyers absorbed inventory and kept prices climbing. That absorption mechanism has stopped. In a single week in late February, Orange County logged 750 price reductions alone. Sellers who bought into the Orlando market during the boom are now contending with a market that no longer has the buyer volume to sustain those figures. Price cuts have become the primary tool for generating any interest at all.

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Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos closes out the list with a 20% price-cut rate in February — and its correction has been among the most documented in the country. Samantha Midler of Austin Portfolio Real Estate told Realtor.com that Austin's outsized price declines stem directly from its outsized pandemic surge. Texas's relatively open posture during the pandemic made the state a destination for remote workers and relocating families, and Austin absorbed a disproportionate share of that demand. It was artificial demand, Midler said, and it was unsustainable. The city that led the country in appreciation is now leading the correction. What looks dramatic in the data is, in Midler's framing, a return to alignment. Prices are finding their way back to what the local economy can actually support.