Pull up Waco's median home price on four different sites this month and you'll get four different numbers, and they don't even agree on direction. That's the confusing part of reading Waco's market right now. The clarifying part is two miles from campus: on the blocks that ring Baylor University, home prices aren't just holding steady while the rest of the city cools. They're climbing, and climbing at a rate that would look like a hot market anywhere else.
Redfin's citywide tracking shows Waco's median sale price at $271,000 over the three months ending May 2026, down 1.3% from the same period a year earlier. Homes are moving faster than they were last year, an average of 56 days compared to 72, and 420 homes sold in May 2026 versus 395 the year before. That's a market easing off, not overheating. But Redfin's own neighborhood-level data tells a different story once you zoom into the pocket labeled "Baylor." There, the average home price was $228,000 as of June 2026, up 11.6% year over year. Same city, same data provider, opposite trend.
Four Reports, One City, Four Different Medians
Before getting to why the Baylor pocket behaves differently, it helps to see just how unreliable a single citywide median is right now. Here's how four widely used sources described the Waco market this year:
| Source | Time Window | Median Price | Year-Over-Year | Days on Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Redfin | 3 months ending May 2026 | $271,000 | down 1.3% | 56 (vs. 72 a year ago) |
| Houzeo forecast | data through December 2025 | $194,000 | down 0.02% | 142 (up 94% YoY) |
| Orchard | trailing 30 days, mid-2026 | $243,000 | down 11.6% | 86 |
| Movoto | May 2026 | $274,000 | not separately reported | 130 (vs. 82 a year ago) |
Those four numbers span an $80,000 range for what's supposedly the same city in roughly the same stretch of 2026. Some of that gap comes from methodology (list price versus sale price, different rolling windows, different sample sizes), but the practical lesson for a buyer is simple: a citywide median is a blend of dozens of very different micro-markets, and blending them together erases the one signal that actually matters to you, which is what's happening in the specific pocket where you're shopping.
The One Number That Holds Steady
That's what makes the Baylor-area data worth paying attention to. While the citywide reports disagree on whether Waco is up or down, the submarket right around campus shows a clear, single-direction trend: prices climbing at a pace well above the broader city, even as overall Waco listings sit longer and sell for less than they did a year ago.
It's also not a frenzy. Redfin scores the Baylor pocket at 33 out of 100 on its competitiveness scale, notably lower than the citywide score of 50. Homes there take an average of 78 days to sell, longer than the current citywide average. So this isn't a bidding-war story. It's a steady, patient climb in price without the urgency you'd expect from a truly hot pocket. That combination, rising price paired with a lower competition score, is the tell that something structural is driving demand rather than a short-term rush.
Two Numbers That Explain the Divergence
The structural driver isn't a mystery. Baylor's student population has grown roughly 23% over the last decade, according to reporting in the Baylor Lariat, and the university's current enrollment sits above 20,600 students. Every one of those students needs a bed within a reasonable distance of campus, and a meaningful share of that demand gets absorbed by single-family and small-multifamily rentals near Baylor, not just purpose-built dorms and apartment complexes.
That demand shows up in the ground-level pipeline. Off-campus communities built specifically for Baylor students have kept multiplying around the university in the last few years, among them Addison at Waco, The Outpost at Waco, The Grove at Waco, and The View on 10th. Each one exists because investor capital sees the same enrollment math the Lariat reported: a steadily growing student body that needs somewhere to live, year after year, regardless of what the broader Waco housing market is doing.
What the Economist Gets Right, and Why It Still Takes Years
Here's the part that catches people off guard. The common assumption is that when developers build more student housing, it should push rents and nearby home values down by adding supply. A Baylor economics professor quoted in the Lariat, W.H. Smith Professor of Economics Dr. James West, confirmed that assumption isn't wrong exactly, just slow.
"It is a general perception that if a developer comes in and builds new houses, that's going to raise the value of homes," West said, describing the instinct most residents have. But he went on to explain the opposite is closer to the truth over time: "As new stock is added, it does tend to drive existing rents down, but it's a slow process."
That single sentence explains why the Baylor submarket can show rising prices in the same year that four new student housing communities are actively marketing units nearby. The correction West describes is real, but it plays out over years, not seasons. A buyer or investor looking at the Baylor pocket today is looking at a market that's still climbing on the way up that curve, not one that's already priced in the eventual softening.
What This Means If You're Comparing Waco Neighborhoods
If you're weighing where to buy in the Waco area, the Baylor pocket and the rest of the city aren't really the same market wearing one mailing address. A house six blocks from campus answers to enrollment numbers, leasing seasons, and investor appetite for rental income. A house in a family-oriented pocket further from campus answers to school district boundaries, commute times, and inventory that's been loosening citywide, exactly the trend Redfin's broader Waco numbers describe.
We've written before about what buyers find once they move past the university and into the small-town feel of nearby communities like Woodway, Hewitt, Robinson, and Lorena, where the pricing story and the pace of the market run on a different clock entirely. Worth a look if the campus-adjacent pocket described here isn't the fit you're after.
The practical takeaway either way: before you anchor a decision to a headline median, ask which specific streets that number is actually drawing from. A blended citywide figure can tell you almost nothing useful about the house you're standing in front of.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Buy Near Campus
Does new student housing construction mean prices near Baylor will eventually fall? Based on Dr. West's own explanation, the eventual direction is downward as new supply accumulates. The word he used was slow, so treating that correction as an immediate or near-term event would be a mistake.
Is buying close to Baylor a good rental investment right now? The data shows steady demand without frantic competition, a lower compete score paired with real price growth. That's a more measured entry point than headline numbers might suggest, though the same slow supply effect will eventually apply to any property in that radius.
How do I know which median actually applies to the house I'm considering? Ask for comps pulled from that specific pocket, not a citywide blend. A house near campus and a house in Hewitt share a mailing city and almost nothing else about their market behavior.
If you're trying to figure out which version of the Waco market actually applies to the house you have in mind, that's exactly the kind of local read a citywide report can't give you. Contact Our WestLand Experts and we'll walk the comps for your specific street, not just the city average.
