Asking prices are coming down at a pace Redfin has not recorded for this point in any year since it began keeping the numbers. In the four weeks ending September 20, 21.1 percent of home sellers with active listings cut their asking price, the highest share for that time of year in Redfin’s records, which start in early 2022. A year earlier the figure was 19.8 percent.
Redfin data journalist Dana Anderson laid out the figure in a September 30 report, which the company bases on an analysis of listing data from multiple listing services. The rise is modest, about 1.3 percentage points, but it comes while sales are slowing and the supply of homes for sale is growing.
The question for anyone shopping for a home, or for a retiree weighing a move, is whether that makes now a better time to bargain. The answer in Redfin’s data is that buyers have more leverage in some metros than others, and that leverage is showing up in asking prices as much as in later markdowns.
The four weeks ending September 20 are the latest window Redfin has published, and the company updates its price-drop data monthly.
Get the deadline alerts before they pass →
Where price cuts are most common
Among the 50 most populous metros Redfin tracks, Denver had the largest share of sellers cutting prices at 30.9 percent, up 3.1 points from a year earlier. Indianapolis followed at 29.9 percent, up 2.0 points. San Antonio (26.8 percent), Dallas (26.6 percent) and Austin (26.1 percent) rounded out the top five.
At the other end, San Francisco had the smallest share at 9.6 percent, down 1.3 points. Newark, New Jersey, was next at 12.2 percent, then Chicago at 13.3 percent, New York at 13.6 percent and Miami at 13.7 percent.
Redfin classes San Antonio, Dallas and Austin among the strongest buyer’s markets, with more than twice as many sellers as buyers. San Francisco and Newark are among five seller’s markets nationally.
The metros where cuts are spreading
Boston posted the biggest jump, with 23.8 percent of sellers cutting prices, up 7.6 points from a year earlier. Minneapolis rose 3.7 points to 25.3 percent, Seattle 3.5 points to 24.3 percent and Phoenix 3.4 points to 23.3 percent. Providence, Rhode Island, rose 3.3 points to 17.4 percent.
Two metros went the other way. Tampa fell 2.0 points to 23.4 percent and Orlando fell 1.2 points to 20.9 percent. Austin and Fort Lauderdale were unchanged from a year earlier.
Chandra Gordon, a Redfin Premier agent in Seattle, said that “today’s buyers have enough options that they can afford to be picky.”
Why more sellers have not cut deeper
Redfin’s report says price-drop rates rose only slightly even as bidding wars faded and homes sat longer. Its reading is that some owners are waiting to list, some are pulling listings rather than accept a lower price, and some are pricing realistically from the start.
Asad Khan, a Redfin senior economist, said the sellers who move quickly are “the ones who are getting savvier about pricing right from day one.” He also said some sellers may be working from outdated comparable sales or overestimating their chances of a bidding war, and he pointed to mortgage rates sitting above 7 percent as a reason owners resist lower prices.
Other figures point the same direction. Realtor.com’s September data, which measures a different thing, the share of all listings with a price cut, put it at 20.8 percent, up 0.9 points from a year earlier, with 1,161,615 active listings, up 5.4 percent. The same report put the median list price at $419,250, down 1.4 percent from a year earlier, and the median time on market at 61 days. Salt Lake City had the highest share of listings with cuts nationally at 33.6 percent, and by region the West led at 22.8 percent while the Northeast was lowest at 15.2 percent. Redfin’s mid-September release counted 299,126 pending sales, down 5.4 percent from a year earlier and the lowest level in nearly three years, with 4.1 months of supply. Redfin treats four to five months of supply as a balanced market, so the national figure sits at the low edge of that range. In the same four weeks, the typical home sold for $397,633, up 2 percent, after a median of 46 days on the market, and the average sale-to-list price ratio was 98.6 percent. The daily 30-year mortgage rate in that release was 7.24 percent as of September 16, up from 6.25 percent a year earlier.
Bargaining when price cuts are climbing
Redfin’s advice for buyers is to look for leverage in the initial asking price, not only in markdowns, and to consider offering below asking on homes that have been listed for more than a month. The report notes that nearly half of U.S. homebuyers are getting seller concessions such as repair money, help with closing costs or mortgage-rate buydowns.
Which metro a buyer is in matters more than the national figure. In Denver and Indianapolis, close to three in ten sellers have already cut, and in San Antonio, Dallas and Austin more than a quarter have, so a list price is more likely to be negotiable. In San Francisco, fewer than one in ten have.
Redfin’s data center carries a price-drops dashboard that it updates monthly, which lets buyers compare their own metro against the national share before making an offer.
More Financial Reading
- 24 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 17 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 20 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
