If you own a home in Horseshoe Bay, Marble Falls, Kingsland, Granite Shoals, Llano, Burnet, or elsewhere in the Highland Lakes and you’re thinking about selling, you’ve probably heard some version of this advice: you need to use a local REALTOR. I understand why people say it. Local knowledge matters. You absolutely want someone who understands the market, the communities, the properties, the nuances, and the questions that need to be asked.
But I think sellers may be asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, “Do I need a local REALTOR?” I think the better question is, “Who is most capable of finding the buyer for my property and getting it sold?” Those aren’t necessarily the same question, and when parts of the Highland Lakes are carrying 15, 16, and even closer to 20 months of housing inventory, I think sellers have every right to start asking some different questions.
Local Knowledge Matters, but a Local Address Doesn’t Prove It
I’ve spent more than four decades in real estate, and one thing I’ve learned is that competency doesn’t come from your ZIP code. Competency comes from knowledge, experience, education, and, most importantly, knowing the right questions to ask at the right time.
In real estate, we earn advanced designations and certifications by taking additional coursework and developing specialized knowledge. Last I checked, there wasn’t a designation for living in the same neighborhood for 30 years. That doesn’t mean living somewhere for 30 years isn’t valuable. Someone who has spent decades in a community may have tremendous knowledge of it, and that knowledge can absolutely benefit a client. But familiarity with a community and professional competency aren’t interchangeable.
Think about medicine. Going to medical school certainly matters, but the diploma hanging on the wall isn’t enough for me to choose who performs surgery on me. I want to know whether that doctor is competent to perform the particular procedure I need. Real estate isn’t much different. Knowing the quickest way to H-E-B doesn’t sell your house. Understanding the market, knowing how to price the property, identifying its competition, recognizing potential buyer objections, positioning the property correctly, marketing it effectively, understanding the contract, negotiating the transaction, and knowing how to get it to closing are what matter.
The Highland Lakes Market Has Changed
This isn’t just my opinion. The inventory numbers tell an important story. I looked at July housing inventory going back more than a decade using data from Texas REALTORS MarketViewer, comparing July with July so we aren’t mixing different seasons of the real estate market. For perspective, Texas REALTORS reports that four to five months of inventory is generally considered a balance between housing supply and buyer demand.
Consider Llano County. In July 2015, there were 9.4 months of housing inventory. In 2016, there were 10.5 months. By July 2019, inventory stood at 8.5 months. Then came the extraordinary pandemic-era market. Inventory dropped to 5.5 months in July 2020 and all the way to 1.8 months in July 2021. By July 2022, it was still only 4.1 months.
Then the direction changed. Llano County climbed to 11.0 months in July 2023, 11.5 months in 2024, 16.0 months in 2025, and 15.7 months in July 2026. So this isn’t simply a story about returning to the inventory levels we saw before the pandemic. Current inventory is substantially higher than it was in many of those earlier years.
Burnet County shows the same broad movement. It went from 5.2 months in July 2019 to 1.9 months in July 2021, then climbed to 6.8 months in 2023, 9.4 months in 2024, 10.5 months in 2025, and 10.4 months in July 2026.
Every community is different, and I’m not suggesting that Horseshoe Bay, Granite Shoals, Llano, Marble Falls, and Kingsland should behave exactly the same way. They shouldn’t. But the larger pattern is difficult to ignore. Sellers today are operating in a very different environment than they were several years ago, and the strategies that worked when buyers were fighting over limited inventory shouldn’t automatically be assumed to work when sellers are competing for buyers.
Horseshoe Bay: Inventory Has Moved Well Beyond a Balanced Market
Horseshoe Bay is one of the clearest examples of just how much the Highland Lakes housing market has changed. In July 2026, Horseshoe Bay had 16.3 months of housing inventory. At 16.3 months, Horseshoe Bay isn’t just a little above that benchmark. There is considerably more housing available relative to the current pace of sales. That changes the dynamics for both buyers and sellers. Buyers have more properties to compare, more time to evaluate their choices, and potentially more negotiating leverage. Sellers, meanwhile, have to recognize that they are competing with a substantial amount of inventory.
Think of it like putting a house on a shelf in a store. When there are only three choices on the shelf, buyers may have to choose among those three. When there are twenty choices, they can become much more particular about price, condition, location, features, and overall value. More inventory doesn’t mean a home won’t sell. It means the home has to compete. That distinction is important in Horseshoe Bay because properties can vary tremendously. Waterfront, golf course, view, condominium, resort-oriented and traditional residential properties don’t necessarily compete with one another equally. The 16.3-month figure tells us about the overall market, but sellers still need to understand the specific inventory competing with their property.
Marble Falls: From 1.8 Months to More Than 9 Months of Inventory
Marble Falls gives us one of the best illustrations of the entire market cycle. In July 2015, Marble Falls had 6.1 months of housing inventory. Inventory increased slightly to 6.4 months in 2016 before beginning a long decline. By July 2019 it had fallen to 4.3 months, then to 3.5 months in 2020 and just 1.8 months in July 2021. That 2021 number helps explain what buyers experienced at the time. There simply wasn’t much available inventory relative to demand. Then the direction changed.
Inventory increased to 2.8 months in July 2022, 4.9 months in 2023 and 6.5 months in 2024. It dipped to 5.5 months in July 2025 before climbing to approximately 9.2 months in July 2026.
That means Marble Falls now has roughly five times the months of inventory it had in July 2021. I don’t think “the market slowed down” adequately describes what happened. The more important change is that the balance between buyers and sellers shifted. When there were 1.8 months of inventory, buyers had relatively few alternatives. At more than nine months, they have considerably more. A buyer who doesn’t like the price, condition, location or features of one property may have several others to consider. For sellers, that means the market is less forgiving. Good homes can absolutely sell, but the market isn’t going to cover up a pricing mistake as easily as it could when inventory was scarce.
Kingsland: One of the Most Dramatic Inventory Changes
If I were looking for one market that demonstrates just how dramatically conditions have changed, Kingsland would be near the top of the list. In July 2015, Kingsland had 7.7 months of inventory. That increased to 8.0 months in 2016 before dropping to 5.4 months in both 2017 and 2018, 4.4 months in 2019 and 2.6 months in 2020. Then came July 2021: 1.6 months of housing inventory.
From there, the market reversed direction. Kingsland climbed to 3.6 months in 2022, 9.8 months in 2023, 7.7 months in 2024 and 15.5 months in 2025. By July 2026, Kingsland had reached 18.4 months of housing inventory. That is more than eleven times the inventory level of July 2021.
Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer. In 2021, there were very few choices relative to the number of homes being purchased. Today, that same buyer is walking into a marketplace with substantially more options. That’s a completely different negotiating environment. It doesn’t automatically mean buyers can name their price, and it certainly doesn’t mean every seller is desperate to sell. Real estate doesn’t work that way. But buyers can generally afford to be more discriminating, and sellers have to pay much closer attention to their competition.
Kingsland also reinforces why I don’t like reducing a market to median price or one month’s closed sales. With relatively small numbers of transactions and a wide variety of properties, those statistics can move dramatically depending on what happened to sell that month. Eighteen-plus months of inventory is harder to ignore. It tells us that the supply of available homes is very high relative to the current pace of buyer absorption.
Granite Shoals: From 1.5 Months to Nearly 15 Months of Inventory
Granite Shoals has experienced one of the more dramatic shifts in housing inventory across the Highland Lakes. In July 2015, the market had 8.3 months of inventory, followed by 8.7 months in 2016. Inventory then generally declined, eventually falling to 2.6 months in July 2020 and 1.8 months in 2021. The low point came in July 2022, when Granite Shoals had just 1.5 months of housing inventory. Since then, the direction has changed dramatically. Inventory increased to 5.8 months in July 2023, 6.9 months in 2024, 12.1 months in 2025, and 14.9 months in July 2026.
Put that into perspective: Granite Shoals now has nearly ten times the months of housing inventory it had just four years ago. It is also carrying substantially more inventory than it did in the pre-pandemic years examined.
That changes the experience on both sides of a transaction. When there were only 1.5 months of inventory, buyers had relatively few choices and sellers benefited from scarcity. At 14.9 months, buyers can be much more selective. They can compare price, condition, location, improvements, lot characteristics, water access and other features before deciding which property offers the best value.
For sellers, that means getting the property on the market is only the beginning. The house has to compete. When buyers have substantially more choices, an overpriced home or one that doesn’t show well can be passed over for another property without the buyer feeling as though they have lost their only opportunity. For a seller, I would want to know what a buyer sees when they put your home beside the other properties currently available. If several similar homes are competing for the same buyer, pricing and condition become increasingly important. An overpriced property can sit while buyers simply move on to the next choice.
For buyers, the increase in inventory creates something that was largely missing during the tightest years of the market: choice. A buyer may be able to compare condition, location, improvements, lot characteristics and price rather than feeling pressure to grab whatever happens to become available.
Granite Shoals also demonstrates why I don’t want to judge these smaller markets by one month’s closed sales or median price. A handful of transactions can dramatically move those numbers. Looking at more than a decade of July inventory gives us a much clearer picture: Granite Shoals went from a severely inventory-constrained market to one with considerably more supply than we’ve seen at any other point in this period.
That’s why I wouldn’t characterize Granite Shoals simply as “up” or “down.” The more meaningful story is that the relationship between supply and demand has changed. Sellers are competing for buyers again, and buyers have regained the ability to be selective. This is also why looking at a single statistic such as median sales price can be misleading in a market this size. A few waterfront or higher-priced sales can move a median substantially, just as several lower-priced transactions can move it in the opposite direction. Months of inventory helps us step back from that noise and see the broader change taking place.
City of Llano: The Trend Matters More Than One Month of Sales
Llano is another market where I think we have to be careful with year-over-year percentages.
When the total number of transactions is relatively small, a handful of additional closings can produce what looks like a huge increase in sales. A handful fewer can make the market look as though it fell off a cliff. Neither conclusion necessarily tells us much about the underlying housing market. That’s why I prefer looking at the long-term change in months of inventory for Llano rather than trying to build a story around how many homes happened to close during one July.
The inventory trend tells us that buyers have considerably more housing supply available relative to the pace of sales than they did during the extraordinarily tight market several years ago. That’s a meaningful change. For sellers, it means pricing based on what the market is doing today rather than what a neighbor received during a very different market. For buyers, it means having more opportunity to compare properties and make a thoughtful decision rather than simply reacting to scarcity. The market doesn’t care what a home would have sold for in 2021. Today’s buyer is comparing today’s property against today’s alternatives.
What These Highland Lakes Markets Are Telling Us
When I put Horseshoe Bay, Granite Shoals, Llano, Marble Falls and Kingsland together, I don’t see five identical housing markets. I see five individual markets experiencing their own versions of the same broader transition. That distinction matters. Real estate is local, but I would take that one step further: real estate is hyperlocal.
A statewide statistic doesn’t tell you what’s happening in the Highland Lakes. A countywide statistic doesn’t necessarily tell you what’s happening in Kingsland. And even the Kingsland number doesn’t tell you precisely what is happening with a particular waterfront home at a particular price point. What the data does tell us is that the days of extraordinary housing scarcity have changed substantially across these communities.
Texas itself has also accumulated more housing supply in recent years. Statewide inventory was 4.1 months in 2024, increased to an average of 4.6 months in 2025, and was 5.4 months in the second quarter of 2026. But some of the Highland Lakes markets we’re looking at are now far beyond those statewide levels. For buyers, more inventory means more choice. For sellers, more inventory means more competition. And for both sides, it means understanding the specific market you’re operating in matters considerably more than relying on headlines about what “the housing market” is doing.
Rising Prices Have Changed the Inventory Equation
Another piece of the Highland Lakes inventory story is what has happened to home prices. Over the past decade, property values across markets such as Marble Falls, Horseshoe Bay, Kingsland, Granite Shoals, and Llano have generally moved substantially higher, even though the path has not been a straight line from year to year. That appreciation has been good for homeowners, but it has also raised the financial threshold for buyers entering these markets. When higher home prices are combined with today’s mortgage rates, the monthly cost of purchasing can eliminate part of the buyer pool or cause buyers to become much more selective. Homes can therefore remain available longer and accumulate on the market, while the pace of closed sales does not necessarily keep up.
That matters because months of inventory is not simply a count of homes for sale, it measures supply relative to the current sales pace. In other words, you can have more homes available while simultaneously having fewer buyers able or willing to absorb them at current prices. National research is seeing a similar affordability mismatch, with the National Association of REALTORS reporting that a significant portion of today’s available inventory does not align well with what buyers can afford.
“That’s Just Our Market” Isn’t Good Enough for Me
One of the most dangerous phrases in business is “it is what it is.” I don’t like that answer because it ends the conversation instead of beginning one. There are legitimate market conditions that none of us can change, but acknowledging a problem isn’t the same thing as solving it.
Texas is hot. That’s a fact. Imagine if generations before us had simply said, “Well, it is what it is. Texas is hot. Get used to it.” Thankfully, somebody decided there ought to be a better solution, and we ended up with air conditioning. Problems should make us start looking for solutions, not stop looking for them.
There are plenty of market conditions no real estate professional can control. I can’t change interest rates. I can’t control the economy. I can’t make another seller take their house off the market, and I can’t manufacture buyers. What I can do is look critically at the things that are within our control.
When something isn’t working, I want to know why. Is it price? Is it condition? Is it presentation? Is the property positioned correctly against its competition? Is the marketing reaching the right people? Are we adequately explaining something an out-of-area buyer may not understand? Are we overlooking an objection because people who live in the area encounter it so frequently that they’ve stopped recognizing it as an objection?
Sometimes fresh eyes matter. Saying, “That’s just the Highland Lakes market,” may explain a condition, but it doesn’t solve the seller’s problem.
Buyers With Choices Look for Diamonds and Deals
I call them the Double D’s: Diamonds and Deals. When buyers have very little inventory to choose from, they may compromise. They might accept a property that doesn’t check every box because they’re worried somebody else will buy it first. Give those same buyers 15 or 16 months of inventory, and the psychology changes because they have choices. In that environment, buyers tend to look for one of two things. They want a diamond, something exceptional enough to rise above the competition, or they want a deal, something priced compellingly enough that they’re willing to accept whatever keeps it from being the diamond.
That’s why accurate pricing becomes even more important in a high-inventory market. I don’t believe you can accurately price real estate by simply calculating a price per square foot because houses aren’t interchangeable boxes. Condition matters. Improvements matter. Floor plan matters. Lot characteristics matter. Views matter. Amenities matter. Maintenance matters. Location within the community matters. There are dozens of variables that can make one property superior or inferior to another.
Your property has to compete against what buyers can purchase instead. If your price and condition don’t compete, you may simply help sell somebody else’s listing. A buyer sees yours, sees the competition, compares the two, and your property becomes the comparison that makes the other house look like the better choice. Marketing can improve exposure and presentation, but marketing cannot repeal economics.
Putting a Property in the MLS Isn’t a Marketing Plan
I believe strongly in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). It’s one of the most valuable tools available to real estate professionals. But a tool and a strategy aren’t the same thing. Give two cooks the same kitchen, the same appliances, and the same ingredients, and you’re not necessarily getting the same dinner.
Real estate works the same way. Putting a listing into an MLS, uploading photographs, writing a property description, syndicating it to consumer websites, and waiting for the phone to ring isn’t enough for me. That’s making a property available for sale. Marketing is figuring out how to make the right buyer notice it and care about it.
It’s not simply hiring a photographer. It’s knowing which photographs tell the story. I call one of them the money shot, the photograph that makes someone stop scrolling and look again. The same principle applies to the words used to market the property. It’s not about filling the available space with adjectives. It’s about understanding what needs to be communicated and what will cause the right buyer to become curious enough to take the next step.
That’s particularly important in the Highland Lakes because many potential buyers don’t already live here. The listing has to make sense to someone who doesn’t already understand everything a local resident takes for granted.
The MLS Boundary Shouldn’t Determine Who Represents You
The MLS conversation also changed considerably in 2024. Following the National Association of REALTORS settlement-related practice changes, offers of compensation were removed from REALTOR MLSs. Prior to the settlement agreement, I would participate in multiple MLSs across the state because those offers of compensation mattered and that protected my clients when I represented buyers and made it easier to list a property when I represented a seller. At the same time, in the Highland Lakes area, there are two MLS systems used, UnlockMLS and HLAOR. Of the two, UnlockMLS provides great access and options for sellers and provides a definite advantage both in marketability, syndication, and less limitations and restrictions found with the HLAOR system.
That’s why I don’t believe a Highland Lakes seller should choose an agent primarily because that person belongs to the local MLS. MLS participation matters but in no way the same as it did prior to 2024. The more important question is what the agent actually does with the tools available to them.
Where the listing is entered is only the beginning. How is the property being positioned? Who is the likely buyer? Where might that buyer be? How are we getting that person’s attention? What story are the photographs telling? What questions or objections does the marketing need to address? What technology suite and resources does the REALTOR have beyond basic MLS exposure? And what happens when the original strategy isn’t producing the desired result? Those are much more important questions to me than whether the agent happens to live a few streets away.
The technology an agent uses matters. Being a National Association of REALTORS content instructor teaching advanced certifications and designations on technology, I see it every day. The technology an agent uses matters because when you hire an agent to sell your home, you are also hiring the marketing technology they bring to the table. As I’ve already stated, putting a property in the MLS and waiting for a buyer is not enough. A strong technology suite allows an agent to professional present your home and the choice of which MLS system takes jurisdiction is one of those important choices because consumers continue to discover properties online well before they consider talking with someone or identifying what REALTOR they are going to use. That exposure that reaches the potential buyer in that zero-moment-of-truth matters and the MLS chosen and the tech suite that a REALTOR uses to market properties matters more than you know.
The Buyer May Not Know They’re Looking for the Highland Lakes Yet
It’s easy to say Highland Lakes buyers come from Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, or San Antonio. Of course many do, but I think stopping there is still thinking too small. The eventual buyer might be someone who has vacationed here, a snowbird considering a more permanent move, someone contemplating retirement, or somebody who is simply tired of the pace of a larger city.
They may want a lake house, acreage, a ranch, a second home, a golf lifestyle, or simply a slower pace in the Texas Hill Country. What they may not know yet is that Horseshoe Bay, Marble Falls, Kingsland, Granite Shoals, Burnet, or Llano can provide what they’re looking for. That’s where marketing becomes much more than advertising bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage. Good marketing allows someone to see themselves in a space without telling them they’re supposed to see themselves there. It lets them feel the lifestyle without announcing, “This is the lifestyle you need.”
People tend to put their guard up when they feel like they’re being sold. I’d rather paint the picture and let the buyer put themselves in the painting. When that happens, the buyer isn’t responding because I told them to want the property. They’re responding because something about what they’ve seen has caused them to imagine themselves there.
Sometimes Fresh Eyes Are an Advantage
There’s another reason I don’t believe sellers should automatically restrict their search to someone who has spent an entire career inside one geographic market. Experience creates perspective. Something I’ve learned working in one market has frequently helped me solve a problem in another, and my relationships with real estate professionals across Texas give me exposure to ideas, practices, buyers, and practitioners well beyond one community.
If the only ice cream you’ve ever eaten is vanilla, you might know vanilla better than anybody else. But knowing everything about vanilla doesn’t tell you much about Rocky Road. Exposure to different markets gives you a larger toolbox because you’ve seen different problems, different solutions, and different ways of approaching the same objective.
That doesn’t eliminate the responsibility to understand the local market. Quite the opposite. If I’m representing a client in Horseshoe Bay, I need to understand Horseshoe Bay. If I’m working in Marble Falls, I need to understand Marble Falls. If I’m representing someone buying or selling a ranch near Llano, I need to understand the variables affecting that property and transaction.
Every real estate professional has to learn markets. Nobody was born knowing one, and living somewhere doesn’t automatically make someone competent to practice real estate there. Knowledge has to be developed, maintained, and continually challenged as markets change.
Finding a Buyer Is Only Half the Job
There’s another part of this conversation that sometimes gets lost when everyone focuses on marketing. Finding a buyer isn’t the same thing as getting a property sold. Once an offer arrives, the contract matters, and it matters a lot.
I’ve taught contracts and advanced real estate courses for years while continuing to practice real estate. Understanding how all the pieces of a contract work together matters when you’re trying to put a seller in the strongest possible position. Price and closing date are important, but they’re hardly the entire offer. Where can the buyer potentially exit? What deadlines matter? What terms create risk for the seller? What happens if something goes sideways? Where does leverage exist, and when does it exist? Those questions can affect whether an offer that looks good on the first page actually gets the seller where they want to go.
I represent people, not transactions. I represent people who happen to own houses they want to sell. There’s usually something that person wants to do after the property sells. Maybe they’re retiring, relocating, selling a second home, buying something else, or simplifying their life. Whatever comes next can be difficult to accomplish until this property sells, which is why I don’t look at a listing as another piece of inventory.
The Only Transaction That Matters Is Yours
Production numbers can be impressive. Someone might have sold 100 homes, 500 homes, or more, and that’s certainly an accomplishment. But if yours is the one they can’t sell, how much do those previous transactions matter to you? You are never going to hear me talk about production numbers. I’m never going to sit across the kitchen table from a seller and argue that I deserve their business because of some transaction count. That is because I believe that the only transaction that matters is theirs. The same should apply to the agent who has lived down the street for 30 years.
Maybe that agent is exceptional. Maybe they’re an outstanding marketer, an excellent negotiator, highly educated, technologically sophisticated, and extraordinarily competent. If so, hire them. But hire them because they’re the best person to accomplish your objective, not simply because they’re the easiest person to find or they’ve lived down the street from you for 30 years.
The market in which those past transactions occurred matters too. Selling homes when there is less than two months of inventory is a very different proposition from representing a seller when there may be 15 or 16 months of inventory. Yesterday’s production doesn’t automatically tell you what someone’s strategy is for today’s market.
The Question Highland Lakes Sellers Should Be Asking
I don’t believe sellers need to choose between a “local” and “non-local” REALTOR. I think that’s the wrong distinction altogether. Local knowledge matters, and local competency matters, but living locally isn’t what creates either one.
When parts of this market are approaching or exceeding 15 months of housing inventory, and some individual communities are even higher, sellers have every reason to broaden the conversation. Sometimes a property needs fresh eyes, fresh energy, or a different perspective. Sometimes experience from other markets brings an idea nobody has considered. And sometimes the local agent really is the best person for the job.
The point is that you have choices. Don’t ask prospective agents only how long they’ve lived there or how many homes they’ve sold. Ask them how they think. Ask how they determined your property’s value and how it compares with the competition. Ask who they believe your likely buyer is and how they intend to reach that person. Ask what they see that could keep someone from purchasing your property and what they’re going to do if their original strategy doesn’t work. Then ask what happens once an offer arrives.
Your property doesn’t care where your REALTOR sleeps at night. If it did, REALTORS would have a significantly limited service area. You need someone who understands where your property is, understands what makes it different, understands who is likely to buy it, knows how to reach those people, knows how to make it compete, and knows how to represent you once the buyer shows up.
In a market with this much inventory, that’s a much more important consideration than asking who lives closest. You don’t necessarily need the closest REALTOR. You need the right one.
If you would like to talk about your particular situation, reach out. I’d be happy to discuss what makes sense for you.
