Albuquerque Real Estate Year-End Review: The Rights, The Wrongs and the Lobos

After “47 episodes” in 2025 and “11 years” of doing the show, Tego and Tracy sat down for their year-end conversation to reflect on what they call “sort of a clarifying year” for Albuquerque real estate. Tego jokes that the market was “slow and boring”—maybe not the flashiest description for a radio show, but an honest way to describe a year without a crash or dramatic swings.

Tracy contrasts that tone with what people were hearing elsewhere: “while the national media has been pushing fear in real estate and pretty much everything,” she says, “we’ve been focusing on local real data and real outcomes.” Throughout the episode they revisit where they got it wrong, where they got it right, “myths we had to kill repeatedly,” surprises no one saw coming, and the community impact of their team beyond day-to-day real estate.

“We, we have to own up to when we get stuff wrong… Where we got it right, we’ll brag about that.”

“Slow and Boring” but Stable: What They Got Right

Once they finish owning the misses, Tego and Tracy pivot to what held up in 2025—starting with the idea that there was no local crash. After a year of scary headlines about “doom and gloom and foreclosures… up a hundred percent” in other places, Tego says plainly, “yeah, so we got that right. I mean, there’s no, there’s no housing crash.”

They remind listeners that some markets, especially in parts of Florida, have seen “some of the biggest declines in the whole country,” but even there prices are “still down like 5%. You know, it’s not like a huge amount.” In Albuquerque, the story was modest growth. Tego estimates “maybe 2% appreciation this year, maybe 3%,” and Tracy notes that’s “not far off of a 50 year average of… about 4%,” especially coming off a stretch where the city was “ahead, ahead, ahead, ahead” with double-digit gains.

“We’ll take two to three… We’ll take this. There’s no, there’s no housing crash.”

Sales volume also ended close to expectations. At one point, Tego says he thought “we were gonna end somewhere around 10,000” homes sold, and while he “was expecting an increase from… 24,” the final numbers still reflected a solid, active market—even if it felt calmer compared to the frenzy buyers and sellers remember from 2020–2021.

Myths They Busted Again and Again

Tracy introduces this part of the show by saying, “let’s talk about some of the myths. We busted over and over again,” and 2025 served up plenty. The biggest was a national story that claimed an extreme share of cash buyers in Albuquerque. As she recalls, “71% of our buyers in our market were cash buyers, and that was in the media,” and Tego adds that “our friends at realtor.com put out a story that said 71% of all buyers in Albuquerque are cash buyers.”

That didn’t sit right with them, and Tego dug into the numbers, ultimately landing in the Albuquerque Journal to correct it. He explains that he ended up getting a press release saying, “no, this is wrong. This data isn’t correct. Here’s the correct data,” and calls cleaning that up his “big myth bust of the year.”

“Again, our friends at realtor.com put out a story that said 71% of all buyers in Albuquerque are cash buyers… This data isn’t correct. Here’s the correct data.”

Another myth was that “prices are falling.” Tracy says, “we’ve already kind of killed that one,” and Tego points out the nuance: while median price can dip, it’s often because “the homes set of new construction, they’re actually… a little bit more affordable so that it changes what the price is.” As he sums it up, the drop in median is “part of… the affordability challenge,” but “that doesn’t necessarily mean that home prices were dropping.”

They also tackled the narrative that “homes aren’t selling” and are “taking forever to sell.” Tego counters that they’re really “just back to a normal market,” noting that they’re seeing “average days on market for homes that sold of 49 days.” Great homes, he says, “are still selling,” while “the homes that need some TLC, maybe a little tired” simply stay on the market a bit longer.

On the policy side, Tracy notes that “rent control was in the news a lot this year,” and Tego says “it seems like we’re gonna keep dealing with that,” but adds that “every time it’s been tried it actually has the opposite effect,” especially given the affordability challenges already in play.

Finally, they hit a consumer-level myth: inspections as pass/fail. Tracy says, “home inspections do not give a house a pass or fail. Right. It’s not really a real thing.” Tego adds, “we hear people say, oh, it failed the inspection… that’s not a thing. It’s inspection is just telling you what it is,” and Tracy calls it “a snapshot” of the home at one moment in time.

“Home inspections do not give a house a pass or fail… It’s not really a real thing… It’s inspection is just telling you what it is.”

Neighborhoods, Data Moments, and Little Stories

The episode also highlights some of the year’s most interesting geographic and lifestyle stories. One “data moment that made us stop” was when new census numbers showed both Sandoval and Valencia counties gaining population while Albuquerque itself slipped a bit. As Tego says, “it’s interesting that there was that decline,” and Tracy notes that it “makes total sense” because those areas are where builders are creating housing starts.

Closer to home, she points out how Rio Rancho has flipped the old narrative. For years, people said you’d go there for a deal, but in 2025 the comparison was “Rio Rancho’s median sale price versus Albuquerque’s median sale price. 368 versus 342 in Albuquerque.” Tego remembers when Rio Rancho was “where you go to buy the cheap houses,” but now jokes that “it’s interesting how it’s flipped.”

“Mesa Del Sol’s on a tear right now, and if you haven’t been there… there’s five new home builders who are building new houses there.”

Tracy and Tego rattle off neighborhoods that stood out this year. “Mesa Del Sol’s on a tear right now,” just south of the airport and downtown, with those five builders. Los Lunas is “really in growth mode,” especially with the long-planned bridge project that’s going to help with traffic at the southern end. In Rio Rancho, especially around Enchanted Hills, there’s “a lot of building, no pun intended,” plus “that new complex… The Block,” which Tracy calls “a entertainment complex” with restaurants and more.

Tracy also reminded the audience of the most interesting feature they saw in a home this year: a fully heated “luxury” chicken coop in Corrales. We’re talking motorized, solar powered gates, temperature controlled; a true eutopia for the chickens that came with the house and had full personality charts and instructions for the new owner! Luxury in New Mexico was taken to the next level in 2025!

They also talk about infill and custom builds. Tracy notes they’ve seen “a lot of big custom homes going up this past year,” including in Sandia Heights. She tells a story about bear paw prints left in stucco below a window on a home they sold—something she then spotted again on a Colorado mountain-home TV episode, laughing, “oh, I’ve seen that before.”

Sprinkled in are quirky lifestyle moments: pickleball, where Tracy says, “it seems like when we show houses now, people even wanna know where a pickleball court is,” or the episode where they talked about interesting street names. Her favorite was “the street name Sparkling Moullah,” and Tego chimes in, “Sparkling Moullah Road,” revealing it’s near Peña Blanca after she guesses Volterra.

“How would you like to live on Sparkling Moullah Road… every time you had to say that?”

 

 

Community Work, Team Highlights, and the Lobos

Beyond stats and sales, the year-end review spends real time on community impact. Tracy recalls that “real early in the year” they went to Roadrunner Food Bank and chose to volunteer “off season,” noting that while people “often volunteer around Thanksgiving and Christmas and then it drops off,” February is when help is really needed. She says the scale of how many people in New Mexico are being fed by that distribution center and “where they get all their food from” is “mind blowing.”

Another project that came on their radar was Personalities Plus. As Tego explains, it’s an organization their broker Cassandra is involved with that “takes used purses and then donates them,” and Tracy adds that “they don’t have to be new” but are “filled with personal hygiene type items for women either on the street or starting over.” Tego calls it “an ongoing thing” and “a good one.”

They also had fun showing up in person. Tracy mentions “one of the fun things we did just to be part of the community” was participating in a trunk-or-treat event in Los Lunas to support their office there. She remembers “a lot of amazing kids that showed up and a lot of candy distributed,” joking that some kids are “probably still eating it.”

The “big one” lately was a clothing drive for kids in the Moriarty and Edgewood area schools. Tego says they learned there was “a need for some clothing” in this more “rural” area where there “maybe [aren’t] the resources to get connected.” Through a principal they know, they helped stock a closet so that when kids show up and don’t have what they need, the schools now “have a inventory that they can go to,” something he says “they really appreciated.”

“One of the fun things we did just to be part of the community is we participated in a trunk or treat event in Los Lunas… And then we just had a big one… a need for some clothing for kids in the Moriarty area schools.”

Along the way, Tracy talks about how impressed she is with their team, saying she wasn’t prepared for “such talent and such great dedicated people as we end the year.” And of course, they weave in Lobo pride—Tracy cheers on “the basketball team that’s doing really well,” they talk about driving out on Christmas Day for the bowl game, and the episode closes with her saying, “Happy New Year. All the best as you finish out the year. Go Lobos.”

Looking Ahead Without Over-Predicting

When it comes to the future, they’re careful not to turn this episode into a prediction show. Tracy says plainly, “we’re not gonna do our predictions like for 2026 right now,” and repeats, “not this episode.” Tego promises, “we’ll do that… for the new year,” underscoring that this conversation is about reflection more than forecasts.

They also touch on how tools and technology changed during the year. Near the end, Tego reflects that “2025 was the year that AI, artificial intelligence, really kind of came into the mainstream,” noting how much more common it is now for people to be aware of and working with it than “three years ago.” Given his reputation—Tracy jokes she started calling him “the stat matic”—it’s no surprise he’s leaning into new ways to share local data and context.

“Right. So we’re not gonna do our predictions like for 2026 right now… I think 2025 was the year that AI, artificial intelligence, really kind of came into the mainstream.”

They wrap by thanking listeners, encouraging people to “subscribe, like, follow, subscribe,” and sending good wishes into the new year. For anyone watching Albuquerque real estate, their message is consistent: ignore the fear-based national noise, pay attention to local numbers, and remember that even a “slow and boring” year can be a very good one.