From January 1 through October 16, the City of Austin issued 360 building permits to demolish one-family houses. That is 39 fewer than the same stretch of 2025, a drop of 9.8 percent, and 256 fewer than 2022, when the count hit 616. Eleven of this year's 360 were issued in the past week, between Monday, October 12 and Friday, October 16.
The last two Sundays we counted permits to build new houses and permits to change existing ones. This week is the third piece of the same record: the permits that say a house is coming down. If you are buying, selling or living next to a lot where one is about to go, this is the record that tells you it is coming.
The count, year by year
We counted City of Austin building permits (permit type BP) in the class "R- 645 Demolition One Family Homes," grouped by issue date. A permit is permission, not proof: it does not say the house is already gone or that a new one has been approved.
| Year | Jan. 1 to Oct. 16 | Full year |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 499 | not pulled |
| 2020 | 400 | not pulled |
| 2021 | 620 | not pulled |
| 2022 | 616 | 723 |
| 2023 | 350 | 425 |
| 2024 | 330 | 409 |
| 2025 | 399 | 486 |
| 2026 | 360 | in progress |
The line is not a trend so much as two levels. Counts ran at 600 or so through the first ten months of 2021 and 2022, then dropped to about 350 in 2023 and have stayed between 330 and 400 since. This year is 42 percent below 2022 and 10 percent below 2025. Our own copy of the records in the Zabalist research database, last synced October 17, 2026 (its sync status carried an error flag that day), also shows 360 for 2026. Its 2025 history is only partly loaded, so every earlier year above comes from the city's feed.
The last 13 weeks
| Week beginning | Permits issued |
|---|---|
| July 20 | 9 |
| July 27 | 8 |
| Aug. 3 | 6 |
| Aug. 10 | 16 |
| Aug. 17 | 10 |
| Aug. 24 | 11 |
| Aug. 31 | 6 |
| Sept. 7 | 10 |
| Sept. 14 | 11 |
| Sept. 21 | 11 |
| Sept. 28 | 3 |
| Oct. 5 | 7 |
| Oct. 12 | 11 |
Those 13 weeks add up to 119 permits, about nine a week. The busiest was the week of August 10 with 16. This week's 11 is above the 13-week average, and the week of September 28, with 3, is the low.
What the permits say is coming down
Each permit carries a short description written at filing, and most name the year the house was built and its size. We read the descriptions for all 360. A year appears in 347 of them, so the figures below describe those 347.
| Decade built | Permits |
|---|---|
| Before 1930 | 12 |
| 1930s | 27 |
| 1940s | 77 |
| 1950s | 127 |
| 1960s | 44 |
| 1970s | 30 |
| 1980 or later | 30 |
The median year built is 1952, and 243 of the 347, about 70 percent, were built before 1960. Where a size is given, the median is 1,342 square feet. Put plainly, the typical house on a demolition permit in Austin this year is a small postwar one-story house.
Where the permits were issued
| ZIP | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 78704 | 67 | 53 |
| 78702 | 43 | 51 |
| 78757 | 61 | 51 |
| 78703 | 37 | 45 |
| 78745 | 48 | 43 |
| 78731 | 26 | 23 |
These six ZIP codes account for 266 of the 360 permits this year. 78702 and 78703 are up from last year, and the other four are down. ZIP codes are a mailing convention, not a neighborhood, and these counts say nothing about the people who live in them. They record where the city issued permits. In the week of October 12, 78757 had four of the 11.
What the City requires before a house comes down
The City of Austin's demolition permit page, which we read on October 18, lays out the order of operations for a total demolition of a house.
- Review. Plan review comes first, and historic and tree reviews may apply. The page says residential structures 45 years or older require review by the Historic Preservation Office and possibly the Historic Landmark Commission.
- Pre-demolition inspection. The pre-construction inspection is the last one before demolition. The city checks that tree and erosion protection is in place and that utilities are handled. Tree work that affects a protected tree of 19 inches or more in diameter needs a tree permit review.
- Neighbor notice. The page says that "five to 10 business days prior to demolition activity," the general contractor must place a yard sign and door hangers and upload a Demolition Notification Acknowledgment. A minimum five-day notification window starts the day it is uploaded. Notice applies to total demolitions and to partial ones that remove more than half of the exterior walls.
- Demolition. It can begin only after the notification requirements are met and the window has closed.
The permit text itself carries a reminder. Of this year's 360 descriptions, 112 repeat the line that the building "shall not be demolished until after the contractor has fulfilled the neighbor notification requirements." The city page does not give the amount of the pre-demolition inspection fee, so we do not either.
What this means if you're buying, selling or living nearby
If you are buying. A lot with a permit like this on file can mean a new house is coming next door, with a construction window of noise, trucks and tree protection fencing. The permit does not tell you what replaces the house. Ask your agent to check the address for a new-construction building permit and for any site or zoning filing, and read the dates on them. Our partner research site Zabalist keeps permit, site-plan and zoning-case records: see the permit records there.
If you are selling an older house. About 70 percent of this year's demolition permits name a house built before 1960, so an offer aimed at the lot rather than the house is a real possibility. We do not say what that means for your price. Ask a licensed agent how such an offer differs from one for the house, and keep your permit history for work you have done: our count of remodel and addition permits shows what a typical record looks like.
If you live next to the lot. The city's notice rule is the one you will actually see: a yard sign and a door hanger, with at least five days before work starts. The city's page names the contractor as responsible for them. Call the city for questions about a specific address, because we cannot tell you what a permit means for your lot.
For the other two parts of this record, see Austin permitted 1,205 new houses in eight weeks and Austin's foundation repair permits, up 48 percent. This piece is general information, not advice about a specific property, permit or contract.
How we counted
The source is the City of Austin's Issued Construction Permits dataset, updated by the city on October 17, 2026, with the latest issue date October 16. We selected permit type BP (building permit) and permit class "R- 645 Demolition One Family Homes," grouped by issue date and by ZIP on the permit address. Year-to-date figures run January 1 through October 16 of each year. Plumbing and other trade permits that also carry a demolition label were excluded, so a house is not counted twice. Weekly counts, percent changes, the year built and size figures (read from the free-text description) and the median are our arithmetic and text matching. Two-family and "all other residential" demolition classes, which include pools and garages, are not in these counts. No owner names, house numbers or MLS data were used, and this piece makes no statement about home prices or sales.
One next step
If a house near one you are watching has a demolition permit, a local agent can pull the permit record for that address with you before you make an offer. Start at our get started page.