Imagine 100 people who sold their homes between June and August gathered in a room. About 45 of them likely compromised by offering concessions to sweeten the deal for buyers.

With considerably more sellers currently active in the market than buyers, the listings platform and online brokerage Redfin says increasingly more sellers are forced to do what it takes to make buyers happy — or risk losing them altogether.

“Buyers know they can be picky,” explained Amanda Peterson, a Redfin agent in Dallas quoted in a recent report from the company. It showed that seller concessions over the three months spanning June to August rose to 44.7% from 42.6% a year earlier.

Advertisement

Marking the highest level for that period since at least 2020, seller concessions have surged because more properties are for sale and fewer buyers are competing for them, the report indicated. Seller concessions hovered around 35% during the same three-month period in 2023 and 2024.

Redfin defines a concession as when a seller provides something that reduces the buyer’s overall cost of the home purchase. That could include paying for closing costs, home repairs or mortgage rate buydowns, but it specifically does not include dropping the list price or buyers negotiating a lower price.

But about 15% of homebuyers this summer received “double discounts” in the form of a seller concession and a price cut. That share is level with last year, but is well above the 11% recorded in 2024 and 8.4% in 2023.

“There are so many homes for sale that buyers are holding out for one that checks every box,” added Peterson.

Concession rates vary widely across regional markets and depending on the seller. For example, home builders selling newly constructed homes have relied heavily on concessions like mortgage rate buydowns, luxury finishes or upgraded appliances, while taking advantage of underwriting loopholes to stack these incentives for homebuyers.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, roughly two-thirds of builders regularly report the use of sales incentives like upgrades and buydowns to attract demand, with roughly one-third also employing price discounts.

Between June and August, eight of the top 10 cities with the highest concession rates were located in the Sun Belt, according to Redfin.

In cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C., where sellers outnumbers buyers by roughly double, concession rates are around 70%. However, concessions are much less prevalent in major metros like San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, where the seller-buyer ratio is more balanced.

From June to August, concession rates among major cities were lowest in San Jose, Calif., at 4.2%, followed by 5.7% in New York and 18.6% in San Francisco. Slightly more than 1 in 5 sellers in Chicago offered concessions, while about 1 in 4 did so in Philadelphia.