Full Price on Paper: How San Antonio Builders Are Setting the Bar for Resale Sellers This Fall

"Valid on FULL PRICED CONTRACTS." That line, in capitals, sits in the fine print of M/I Homes' Greater San Antonio fall promotion. It explains more about the market a resale seller faces this season than any median price.

The offer was large. On quick move-in homes that closed by November 30, 2026, buyers got a 2/1 buydown on a 30-year FHA loan: 3.25% in year one, 4.25% in year two, then 5.25% for the rest of the loan, with up to $10,000 in closing costs and a move-in package. The catch was that it applied only to contracts written at full price between October 26 and October 31. The builder gave up thousands of dollars and kept the price untouched.

Resale sellers in San Antonio have mostly been doing the reverse.

The resale side is giving ground on price

The San Antonio Board of REALTORS® September 2026 report, released October 9, shows homes in the San Antonio area closed at an average of 92.4% of their original list price. They averaged 88 days on market, up 11% year over year. Inventory reached 5.95 months, and pending sales fell 16% from September 2025.

The Bexar County single-family numbers in the same SABOR release make the pattern sharper. Sales rose 6% year over year in September to 1,839 homes, while the median single-family price fell 4.8% to $282,680. More homes are selling, at lower prices. Transactions are getting done because price is moving.

Here is what 92.4% means on a single home. A house first listed at $330,000 that closes at that average lands near $304,900. That is about $25,000 between the first asking price and the closing table, given up in price reductions, negotiation or both.

Across the wider metro, the Texas REALTORS® Q3 2026 report puts the San Antonio–New Braunfels median at $305,000 for the third quarter, down 1.0% year over year, with 6.1 months of inventory.

What builders put on the table in late October

Builders took a different route through the same market. The M/I, Lennar and Highland windows closed on October 31 or November 1, 2026, so those three offers are examples of builder tactics now, not deals a buyer can still sign.

M/I listed its offer at Agave, Legacy Hills, Mesquite Ridge, Paloma Park, Preserve at Annabelle Ranch and Vista Gardens. Lennar's examples included a $243,724 move-in-ready home in Morgan Heights and a $184,099 home in Ruby Crossing, both already reflecting the $20,000 reduction. Mayfair is a master-planned community in the New Braunfels area, inside the same metro buyer pool.

Lennar did cut price. Every other offer in the table puts the money into the loan, the closing or the house itself, and the recorded sale price stays where the builder set it. A builder selling dozens of homes in one subdivision has good reason to protect that number. Each recorded price becomes a comparable sale for the appraisals on the next homes it sells. A rate buydown or closing-cost credit costs the builder real money without lowering that benchmark.

Price is the weakest lever on a monthly payment

Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed average at 7.24% as of October 29, 2026. That was down from 7.32% the week before, but well above the 6.17% of a year earlier. At those rates, buyers shop by monthly payment, and the payment is where the two strategies part ways.

Our own arithmetic, counting principal and interest only and rounded:

• A $20,000 price cut on a 30-year loan at 7.24% lowers the monthly payment by about $136.
• M/I's buydown, applied to the $314,193 financed amount in its own disclosure, lowers the payment by about $368 a month in year one and about $189 a month in year two, compared with the 5.25% note rate.

The comparison has limits. M/I's rates are on an FHA loan, and Freddie Mac's average covers conventional loans, so the two figures are not like for like. A temporary buydown also ends, and the full payment arrives in year three. Even so, a buyer standing in a model home sees a first-year payment that a resale listing would need a much larger price cut to match. The builder's version also leaves its comparable sales intact.

The incentives are spread across the market, not limited to a few companies. Zonda's September 2026 national survey found publicly advertised incentives at 82% of communities selling quick move-in homes and 63% for to-be-built homes. Zonda notes that advertised offers understate how often incentives are actually used. It counted 38,214 quick move-in homes nationally that month, 66.2% more than in 2019. Locally, Texas A&M's Texas Real Estate Research Center recorded 6,550 single-family permits in San Antonio–New Braunfels through August 2026, up 1.0% from a year earlier, so the new-home pipeline is not shrinking.

Ownership of that pipeline is concentrated. Builder magazine's 2026 Local Leaders list ranked San Antonio–New Braunfels fourth among new-home markets and put the top 10 builders' 2025 share at 77.1% of new-home closings. A few companies with in-house mortgage arms, and the budgets to buy down rates, set the monthly-payment benchmark that many buyers bring to a resale showing.

How resale sellers have answered before

Some resale sellers have already copied the builder approach. In July 2025, the San Antonio Express-News reported on a Redbird Ranch listing that offered buyers closing costs, appliances and a temporary rate buydown, and went under contract in 14 days. Local agents told the paper that resale sellers were offering more as buyers compared their homes with builder incentives. In October 2025, the Express-News described builders offering upgrades, rate reductions and closing-cost help, with resale sellers answering through lender credits and closing-cost assistance. Both stories are a year or more old. They show what resale sellers have tried, not proof of what works this winter.

Builder concessions have ceilings. M/I's disclosures state that its seller contribution is "limited to agency limits, which depend on the loan program and LTV." How those limits apply to a resale seller's credit or buydown depends on the buyer's loan, and the buyer's lender is the one who can confirm it. This post is general market information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm the details of your own sale with your lender, title company or attorney.

On a resale home this winter, the list price works best as one part of the buyer's total cost, set together with any credit from the first day of listing. Repeated cuts are the alternative. SABOR's chair, Ed Zapata, put the seller side plainly in the September release: "For sellers, understanding current comparable sales and setting a realistic asking price remain important."

Questions sellers are asking

When will the October numbers come out? SABOR released its August report on September 10 and its September report on October 9, so October figures will probably arrive in the first half of November. Until that release, September 2026 is the latest month available.

Does the falling pending-sales count matter if closings held up? Pending sales are contracts that have not closed yet. They fell 16% year over year in September while closed sales barely moved. Today's pending sales are the closings of the next month or two, so that drop points to softer closing numbers ahead.

Are builders still offering incentives after November? Several late-October offers ended on October 31 or November 1. Of those listed above, David Weekley's financing at Mayfair runs through November 20, and Perry Homes' offer there requires closing by December 31, 2026. Builder offers change often and depend on availability.

If you plan to list this winter, Meghan Pelley Realty Team can put your home's likely price next to the builder offers your buyers are seeing and help you plan your concessions before the first showing. Start with a valuation built on current comparable sales. Get Your Home Valuation.