Why the McAllen metro was a buyer’s market in September, with thousands of homes for sale, while Brownsville had fewer available

There are thousands of single-family homes for sale across the Rio Grande Valley, but there are many more homes than buyers, according to the most recent real estate data for September 2025. 

In the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area, there are 3,144 active listings of homes on the market, a 30% increase compared to last September. 

That means there’s 9.2 months of housing inventory, which means it’s a buyer’s, not a seller’s market. About 6 months of inventory is considered a stable market. 

In the McAllen metro, the number of homes sold in September increased by less than 1% over the year to 371 sales, with a median price of $240,000 —the highest home price since 2005. 

In the Brownsville-Harlingen metro area, there were 1,682 active listings of homes on the market, a 10% increase over the year. And there’s 7.6 months of inventory, which means it’s also a buyer’s market there. 

In the Brownsville metro, the number of homes sold in September increased by 25% over the year to 237 sales, with a median price of $262,900 – down from a recent peak of $298,579 in 2023. 

It’s not astronomically expensive to build frame homes in the Rio Grande Valley, nor are local regulations about lot size curbing development, said Nick Rhodes, president and CEO of Rhodes Enterprises, a McAllen-based housing developer, during a recent Texas Tribune event about the region. 

Instead, it’s an affordability issue, mainly because home buyers are often living rent-free at their family’s home before buying a house, but need a mortgage, he said. 

“What we’re battling in the Valley is we’re trying to hit the mathematical equation of how the average person can purchase a house,” Rhodes said. 

For example, in 2019, the most popular single-family home sold in the McAllen area was a 1,500-square-foot home with three bedrooms and a two-car garage, which cost $175,000 on a 5,500-square-foot lot, and mortgage interest rates were around 4.5% at the time. If an individual earned about $45,000 a year, they would likely qualify for a 30-year mortgage with 3.5% down payment and move into that house. 

“The average person [could buy] the average house. Today, that same house is $240,000 to $250,000,” Rhodes said. 

Meanwhile, the home mortgage rates are closer to 7% and the buyer would need to earn closer to $80,000 to buy the home. But the median household income has not kept pace with that kind of growth. 

The Federal Reserve Bank did bring down the fed funds rate slightly last week, but that doesn’t guarantee that home mortgage rates will follow suit. 

“There’s just a huge amount of people that no longer qualify for the home. I think some of that’s just going to be if rates come down,” Rhodes said.