Days on market and price cuts in Texas and Houston
Why a Montebello Home Sits on the Market and How Price Cuts Play Out
Updated November 2026
Why isn't my Montebello house selling, and when should I lower the price?
A Montebello home sits longest when priced from building headline figures; in August 2026 the Texas Real Estate Research Center put the median Texas price cut at 3.3 percent.
Paige Martin, Houston Properties Team, Montebello
Source: Texas Real Estate Research Center, Texas Housing Insight, August 2026, August 2026.
Why does a home at Montebello sit unsold?
Most often the asking price came from the building's headline figures rather than from the home's own comparable set. Listing that way and reducing later is what produced the longest marketing periods Montebello has recorded.
Four homes share each floor of the 30-story tower, and each plan repeats up the building. The fair comparison for one home is the same plan at a similar height with the same outlook. In a building of 98 homes, that usually means two or three specific homes.
Height alone moves a price a long way here. In 2001 the developer asked 66 percent more for the same 3,500 square foot plan on the twenty-eighth floor than on the second. A median that mixes floors and plans can hand a home a number its own comparables never supported.
The Texas Real Estate Research Center describes a statewide version of the same habit. In its Summer 2026 report, the Texas Real Estate Research Center says seller expectations are perhaps lagging, and links that to frequent and significant price cuts.
Coming off the peak prices of 2021-22, many homeowners may be slow or reluctant to price their properties to current market conditions, especially if those peak values have become key pricing anchors.
How long can a Montebello listing run before it counts as sitting?
Montebello gives a wide range rather than a norm. Three of the closings in the trailing twelve months published a marketing period, at 16, 55 and 169 days. The September 2025 closing published none.
The market-statistics feed reports a median of 104 days across the homes it counts, as of November 2026. That is a different set, measured a different way, from the three published periods.
Statewide timing gives a second yardstick. The Texas Real Estate Research Center reported that homes sold in June 2026 averaged 62 days on the market, while June-end unsold inventory averaged 90. The Texas Real Estate Research Center put that gap at nearly 30 days.
Winter ran longer. The Texas Real Estate Research Center recorded January 2026 averages of 80 days for homes that sold and 104 days for unsold inventory.
A tower trading a few homes a year will not track Texas averages closely. Use them to see how far unsold homes have been trailing sold ones, then judge your listing against the building's own range.
How do price cuts across Texas and Houston compare with what Montebello's record shows?
In its August 2026 report, the Texas Real Estate Research Center gave a median seller price cut of $12,000, equal to 3.3 percent of the initial listing price.
Houston has run deeper. In its Summer 2026 report, the Texas Real Estate Research Center put Houston's price concessions at 4.9 percent in the first four months of the year. The same Texas Real Estate Research Center report counted 63 percent of Houston closed sales in 2025 finishing at least 3 percent below the first asking price.
Montebello's own record is thinner. Homes here closed at about 96.1 percent of their asking price, on the feed's count. Texas publishes closed prices only in bands, so the exact figure for a named home is what it asked.
Home 234 shows a lower return in practice. It closed on 8 September 2025 asking $2,750,000, came back about three months later, then spent 169 days on the market. It closed again in June 2026 asking $2,700,000, which is $50,000 lower.
Both of its closings fall inside the same reported price band. Whether the second seller took less is therefore not a public figure.
What is the Houston market doing to a Montebello listing in 2026?
Supply has been rising around the building. The Texas Real Estate Research Center reported that Houston kept posting year-over-year gains in active listings and months' supply in June 2026.
Prices have softened with it. Entering 2026, the Texas Real Estate Research Center recorded Houston prices down 1 percent year over year, alongside increased pricing pressure.
Montebello itself gives little timing signal. Its last twelve months produced one closing in September, one in November, none for four months, then one in April and one in June. Over nine complete years it recorded between one and six sales a year.
The feed reports 6.0 months of inventory for the building. With so few homes listed at any time, one new listing can change that figure, so check what is actually for sale on the day you price.
What does it cost to keep a Montebello home on the market another month?
The published assessment rate is $1.05 per square foot each month, so a 5,000 square foot home carries $5,250. Property tax at 2.24 percent, the 2026 median rate the feed reports for homes sold here, adds roughly $3,700 a month on a two million dollar valuation. Insurance and utilities come on top.
Home 234 puts numbers on a long wait. Across the nine months between its two closings, its assessments came to about $44,900 and its property tax to about $45,400, at that median rate.
A reduction made after months on the market refunds none of the months already carried. That is the case for pricing to the comparable set before the listing goes live.
When should a Montebello seller lower the asking price?
Lower it when the comparable homes show the number is wrong, rather than on a fixed date. Ask whoever priced the home to name them: the same plan at a similar height with the same outlook. Then ask which figures are asking prices and which are bands, line by line.
A home past the long end of the building's published range, priced above what its comparables support, is due a correction. Make one move to the number those homes support, rather than a series of small tests. Where they do support the number, look at condition and presentation before price.
Paige Martin of Real Broker, LLC works with owners at Montebello on what to ask, and when. If a review changes the number, it is better to know before the next month of carrying costs than after it.
Questions & answers
Montebello questions, answered
Should I take my Montebello home off the market instead of lowering the price?
Withdrawing a listing stops the showings, and the bills keep coming. The assessment, property tax, insurance and utilities run every month the home waits. The Texas Real Estate Research Center recorded a noticeable wave of delistings in the fall and winter of 2025, as many sellers pulled back while the market cooled. Pulling a home leaves its comparable set unchanged, and that set prices it when it returns.
A pause makes sense where something about the home itself will change, such as finished work or a fuller record of what has been replaced. Where nothing changes, the same number meets the next round of buyers. Watch the paperwork clock too. A resale certificate must have been prepared no earlier than three months before it reaches a buyer. A long pause can leave the copy you ordered too old to use. Before deciding, ask for the comparable set again by name, and check whether any home in it has listed or closed since you went live.
Will buyers see that I lowered the price on my Montebello home?
For a named home in Texas, the asking price is the exact public figure, because closed prices are released only as ranges. A buyer's agent reading the building's record sees what each home asked and how long it sat where its listing published it. A listing portal shows homes one at a time rather than the sequence a single home goes through.
The figures a buyer's agent puts beside yours are asking prices as well, so the comparison runs asking price against asking price. That makes the new number more important than the history behind it. Ask that the reduced figure be shown against the same plan at a similar height, with each line labeled as an asking price or a band. A reduction that lands on a number the comparable homes support gives a buyer a clear reason to look again.
Is there a better month to lower the price on a Montebello home?
Montebello gives no seasonal pattern to wait for. Its closings in the last twelve months clustered in no particular season, with a stretch of four months that produced none. Statewide, the Texas Real Estate Research Center found that even at the peak of the spring 2025 buying season, affordability kept homes sitting longer and pushed sellers to cut prices at record levels.
The Texas Real Estate Research Center put spring 2025 availability at a 14-year high, after a surge in active inventory and an influx of new listings. A busy season brings buyers and competing homes to market together. In a tower that records a few sales a year, one competing listing on your plan can count for more than the month on the calendar. Ask whether a home with the same plan on a similar floor is listed today, and price with that home in view.
How big were price cuts in Texas at the end of 2025?
The Texas Real Estate Research Center reported that over two-thirds of closed Texas sales in November and December 2025 involved cuts of 3 percent or more from the initial listing. In the same report, the Texas Real Estate Research Center put the average reduction at 7.4 percent and the median cut at 5.4 percent. Those are statewide figures for a cooling stretch of the year.
The same Texas Real Estate Research Center report put average days on market for unsold Texas inventory at 110 days, against 102 days in 2024. It also recorded Houston prices falling 0.6 percent year over year in December. A Montebello asking price still rests on two or three specific homes on the same plan. Read the statewide cut sizes as context for how far sellers moved, and never as the size of your own reduction.
Should I fix up my Montebello home instead of cutting the price?
Condition is the lever an owner can still move, and the market here has paid a large premium for finished condition. Two homes on the same 5,528 square foot plan asked $497 and $451 per square foot, 10.2 percent apart, and the finished one sat thirteen floors lower. What a remodel costs is a private figure, so get a builder's bid first.
Set three options side by side: a reduction, a full remodel, and presenting the home well without gutting it. No pair of homes in the building isolates that middle option, so its worth here has no local measure. A remodel also runs on a calendar, and the home carries assessments and property tax every month the work lasts. Home 244 asked $409 per square foot in December 2022, was gutted, asked $634 in July 2024 and sold in five days. What that work cost was never published.
What should I bring when I sit down to review my Montebello asking price?
Bring the home's appraisal account, a resale certificate if one has been ordered, and a written note of what has been replaced or remodelled and when. Ask for the comparable homes listed one by one, each line labeled as an asking price or a band, with the days each home sat where its listing published them.
The appraisal account carries the floor area a buyer's appraiser works from, so the listing should quote the same figure. The resale certificate states the home's own assessment. The association has ten days after a written request to produce one and may charge up to $375. Undocumented work is hard to charge for, which is why the written note matters. Paige Martin of Real Broker, LLC works with owners at Montebello on what to ask, and when. A home valuation is the place to start that review.
What do clients say on Google?
My husband and I have used Paige Martin and the Houston Properties Team for four separate housing transactions and have had such a good experience that we continuously recommend her team to friends and family.