Sellers in Denver cut the asking price on 30.9% of their listings during the four weeks ending Sept. 20, while sellers in San Francisco cut on just 9.6%, according to Redfin’s metro price-drop data. The national share for the same period was 21%. Between the two metros sits a gap of 21.3 percentage points, and the two ends of the table describe housing markets that are behaving almost like different countries.
Redfin’s table covers 50 metro areas, and the rest of the distribution shows that the Denver and San Francisco readings are not isolated oddities. They are the outer edges of a pattern in which Sun Belt and Mountain markets are discounting heavily while coastal and older Northeast and Midwest metros are not.
Denver at 30.9% and the cluster of high-cut markets
Denver’s 30.9% is the highest in the table, and it is rising: Redfin shows the share up 3.1 percentage points from a year earlier, the steepest increase among the metros listed in its summary. Roughly three of every ten active listings there had a price reduction inside a four-week window, which means a seller who lists at an optimistic number has a high chance of being among them.
Denver is not alone near the top. Redfin’s post, published Sept. 30, puts Indianapolis at 29.9%, San Antonio at 26.8%, Dallas at 26.6% and Austin at 26.1%. Four of those five markets sit in Texas or the Mountain West, regions that drew heavy buyer demand and new construction in recent years. Of the five, only Austin was flat from a year earlier at 0 points; Indianapolis rose 2.0 points, Dallas 1.1 and San Antonio 0.7.
San Francisco at 9.6% and the metros that hold their prices
San Francisco sits at the opposite end at 9.6%, and unlike Denver it is moving the other way, down 1.3 points from a year ago. Fewer than one in ten listings there carried a cut. Sellers in that market are, by this measure, mostly getting the price they asked.
The low end of the table is crowded with large, expensive, supply-constrained metros. Newark, New Jersey, registered 12.2%, Chicago 13.3%, New York 13.6% and Miami 13.7%. Chicago slipped 0.3 points from last year, while Newark rose 1.5, New York 0.4 and Miami 0.2. All five of the lowest-cut metros are below the 21% national figure by at least seven points.
What sellers who price right do differently
Redfin attributes the pattern to pricing discipline rather than to any single local shock. Senior Economist Asad Khan said sellers who sell quickly are the ones getting savvier about pricing correctly from the first day, while those who price too high may be working from outdated comparable sales or expecting bidding wars that no longer materialize.
Chandra Gordon, a Redfin Premier Agent in Seattle, made the same point from the listing side: overpricing a home is a fast way to deter buyers, and pricing with the market from the start meets buyers where they are instead of leaving a listing to go stale. Redfin describes the current environment as the strongest buyer’s market on record.
The dispersion matters because a national average hides it. A 21% national share would suggest that about one listing in five is reduced everywhere. In Denver the odds are about one in three. In San Francisco they are closer to one in ten.
The financing side of the decision
Price cuts are only half of what a buyer or seller weighs. The other half is the cost of borrowing: Freddie Mac’s weekly survey had the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.03% in the week of Sept. 24. A seller in a high-cut metro is competing against buyers who face that monthly payment, which helps explain why asking prices in Denver and Indianapolis are being revised rather than defended.
For older homeowners considering a sale or a move, the metro gap is a practical planning figure. A home in a 30% cut market may need to be priced near true comparable sales on the first day, while a home in a sub-15% market may still draw offers at the asking price. Redfin’s research index carries the national price and sales figures that sit alongside the price-drop table.
Limits of the table
The figures measure the share of active listings with a price reduction, not the size of the reduction. Redfin’s summary does not report median sale prices, days on market or the dollar savings to buyers, so the data cannot show how much sellers are cutting, only how often. The 21% national figure is also a rounded value of Redfin’s own proprietary listing data, and no government agency publishes this series.
Redfin’s price-drop table, authored by Dana Anderson for the Sept. 30 post, remains the controlling source for every metro number above.
Two metros, two price-cut rates, one property-tax bill
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit is for older homeowners and renters who pay property taxes or heating, cooling and repair bills and are unsure which relief programs exist where they live. Whether a home sits in a heavy-discount metro or a high-price one, those carrying costs keep arriving, and the programs that reduce them are scattered across local and state offices.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit is an 11-page kit that lays out the 5 kinds of property-tax relief, the circuit-breaker credit that includes renters, and an application log and renewal calendar for keeping track of each filing.
Open the Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit to sort out the relief programs for a home →
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
