Home sellers are giving concessions at near-record levels

Key takeaways:

• Around two in five home sellers cut deals that lowered the total cost of buying a home in the first three months of 2025.
• Cancellations of pending home sales went up in March, showing how economic concerns are weighing on prospective homebuyers and challenging sellers. 
• Tariffs and economic uncertainty are presenting opportunities to homebuyers who are more comfortable with their finances.

Home sellers have been giving concessions at levels not seen for years, another sign that housing has shifted to a buyer's market.

Some 44% of home sellers in the first quarter of 2025 gave concessions, deals that lower the total cost of buying a home, which is just shy of the record 45% rate in 2023, according to a report from real-estate brokerage Redfin.

Concessions can include money towards repairs, homeowners association fees and closing costs, but don't include when the sale price is dropped even though that has been increasingly happening, too.

“Buyers used to ask for concessions to cover little things like repairs. Now they’re negotiating concessions so they can afford to buy a home,” Chaley McVay, a Redfin Premier real-estate agent in Portland, Oregon said in a statement. “A lot of sellers are offering money for mortgage-rate buydowns, and I recently had one seller cover seven months of HOA fees for the buyer.”

Some home prices have also dropped with concessions

Redfin said some 21.5% sold in the first quarter of 2025 had a final sale price below the asking price in addition to a concession, up from 18.5% a year earlier, while around 16% had a price cut and a concession, up from 13% a year earlier.

And nearly 10% had all three: A concession, a price cut and a final sale price below the original list price, up from 8% a year earlier, Redfin said.

Where are home sellers giving more concessions in 2025?

Concessions are far more common in parts of the country.

Seattle, Washington had the biggest share of home sales concessions in the first quarter of 2025, with 71%, up from 36% a year ago.

The other top five metros for concessions were Portland, Oregon (64%), Atlanta, Georgia (62%), San Diego, California (61%) and Denver, Colorado (59%).

Prospective homebuyers looking for concessions may also want to check out condos.

“It’s super common to see seller concessions for condos and new-construction townhomes, but less so for single-family homes — unless the single-family home has been sitting on the market for a while,” said Stephanie Kastner, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Seattle, in a statement.

She said it is much more common for concessions to be offered with condos because of skyrocketing HOA fees, insurance and it is in the best interest of builders to keep sales prices high even if they will cut deals.

“Condos have become a tougher sell," Kastner said. "And builders are offering concessions because it’s in their best interest to keep sale prices high; they’re willing to pay buyers’ closing costs and maybe provide a free washer-dryer if it means they don’t have to drop the listing price.”

Concessions show signs of trouble in housing market

The jump in home sellers giving concessions follow's economic uncertainty, largely brought on by President Trump's tariffs, that is sending jitters through the housing market.

Tariffs are specifically hurting housing markets in a few ways, including sending mortgage rates seesawing and boosting construction costs.

Home listings are now at a five-year high and home sales slowed to their slowest pace in six years in March, Redfin said.

Home values also only increased 0.2% in March, a month of typically strong growth, and prospective homebuyers now have 19% more homes to choose from than a year ago, according to real-estate website Zillow, which also turned it home price forecast into negative territory, predicting that home values decline 1.9% in 2025.

And the equivalent of around 13% of homes in March saw their pending sales cancelled, which is the third highest March level in records dating back to 2017, Redfin said.