The 10 U.S. Cities Where You’re Most (and Least) Likely To Find Sellers Slashing Home Prices

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Those days are fast fading. Today’s homebuyers simply don’t have as much cash to spend; they’re grappling with rising rents, punishing inflation, and increasing mortgage interest rates. Those higher rates can tack on hundreds of dollars each month to the typical mortgage payment, pricing many buyers out of the market entirely, and forcing others to drastically reduce their homebuying budgets.

When a near-turnkey home in a desirable area is priced right, it’s still selling fast—often with multiple offers stretching well above the list price. But sellers who overshot the market are quickly learning they can no longer fetch the sky-high prices their neighbors nabbed in early 2022. So, many are now reducing asking prices to attract buyers.

Realtor.com® found the real estate markets where the highest percentage of sellers are cutting their initial list prices—and the markets that are seeing the lowest number of price reductions.

In places where prices are being trimmed, buyers have more power to negotiate the final price and repairs and to ask for other concessions—maybe even for the seller to chip in on closing costs. However, in areas where sellers are sticking to the list, buyers could find themselves in bidding wars and offering above the asking price.

“A price reduction means the sellers are coming into the market optimistic, but the buyers aren’t meeting them there,” says Hannah Jones, an economic research analyst at Realtor.com®. “Eventually, they might have to lower the price in order to get the interest that will lead to a sale.”

Nationally, nearly one-fifth of all homes on the market had price reductions in February, according to the most recent Realtor.com data. The number of sellers who slashed prices doubled in the last year, to more than 18% in February—up from about 9% last year.

Some of the steepest cuts have been in the Sun Belt markets, where prices rose at the fastest clip during the height of the pandemic. Now that mortgage rates are up from the mid-2% range, into the high 6% territory, many buyers simply can’t afford those higher prices.

In the historically more affordable, small- and medium-sized markets in the Northeast and Midwest, sellers have been less inclined to lower their prices.

To come up with the metropolitan areas with the most and fewest price reductions, we ranked the 150 largest U.S. metros, based on the portion of Realtor.com listings with a price reduction in the month of February. We limited our list to the single metro with the largest or smallest share of listings with a price reduction per state, for geographic diversity. (Metropolitan areas include the main city and surrounding towns and smaller urban areas.)

So where are sellers cutting prices the most? And where are list prices staying put?

Metros With the Most Price Reductions

1. Austin, TX

Portion of listings with a price reduction in February: 25.4%
Median list price in February: $532,500

Austin essentially became the poster child of the early-pandemic homebuying craze in the U.S.

The Texas capital’s status as a growing tech hub, along with its decent cost of living and hip/offbeat culture, fit perfectly into the national trend of people migrating away from pricy, coastal hubs and instead flocking toward relatively more affordable areas—often in the Sun Belt. Austin’s growth as a housing market was exponential.

So how then did it become the very incarnation of 2023’s home price reductions?

When demand soared, prices followed, and the bidding wars drove them up even further—beyond the reach of many would-be buyers.

Realtor.com’s Jones, an Austin resident herself, had a front-row seat to watch it all play out.

“During the early days of the pandemic, it seemed like as soon as a home hit the market, it was under contract,” she says. ”Every open house was overflowing, and I heard story after story of bidding wars.”

Now, homes are on the market longer. Along with a surplus of new construction, supply seems to be outstripping demand. And currently, one in every four listings has been discounted.

“One thing that has stuck around, though, is overall high prices,” notes Jones. “They may not be as high as they were a year ago, but relative to pre-pandemic, the change is staggering.”

2. Phoenix, AZ

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 24.6%
Median list price: $487,000

Phoenix is another market where prices rose quickly during the pandemic, as investors, retirees, and just about everyone else flooded the market. But the market has been cooling in recent months and sellers are having to temper expectations and come down on prices. It’s a tough adjustment for many to make.

“Sellers think their home is still worth more than it is,” says Kris Lopez, a realtor at EXP Realty in Phoenix. “They’re using comps [of similar homes] from six months ago, but that’s just not the case anymore.”

Overall, prices are down in the Phoenix metro by about 3%, compared to this time last year and down about 8% from the price peak in the middle of 2022.

“Homes priced right are still selling relatively quickly, or even getting multiple offers,” Lopez says.

3. Port St. Lucie, FL

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 23.0%
Median list price: $450,000

Port St. Lucie is about an hour north of Palm Beach, FL, on the eastern side of the state. It has been ranked one of the fastest growing metros. It’s doubled in size over the past 30 years, growing to more than 500,000 residents as of 2021, according the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s all thanks to newcomers eager to enjoy Port St. Lucie’s reasonably priced homes, sun, and local beaches.

Prices are still up about 8% year-over-year but are down about 4% from the peak last year. Still, buyers have negotiating power, as more than one in every four listings has been discounted.

Buyers looking for a deal can check out this three-bedroom, two-bath house, where the price was reduced by $15,000, to $409,900.

4. Huntsville, AL

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 22.0%
Median list price: $394,175

Huntsville has become a tech-rich economy, driven largely by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the government’s nearby defense and intelligence facility, Redstone Arsenal. A concentration of government contractor corporations have clustered in the area, meaning good wages and plenty of demand for homes.

It has also been historically quite affordable, with prices about 25% below the national average.

But even in this more affordable tech hub in the South, home prices plateaued and have dropped since the middle of 2022. The median listing price is still 9% above the price from this time last year, which would be great in normal market conditions. But sellers are learning they have to come down some to move their properties, the data shows.

A large, three-bedroom, ranch-style home in Huntsville, built in the early 1960s is listed for about $350,000, discounted by $35,000 in just the past few weeks.

5. Las Vegas, NV

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 21.9%
Median list price: $445,500

Las Vegas was an epicenter of the housing crash 15 years ago. Scores of newly constructed homes sat empty, as the foreclosure crisis bludgeoned the city’s housing market. Now, once again, Sin City is an emblem of the price corrections happening in the real estate market.

The post-crash real estate market in Vegas grew steadily and, by early 2022, homes there were priced well above the national median, just below $500,000. Prices have since descended to just under $450,000, at least partially because of the more than one-fifth of all listings being discounted.

For $350,000, home shoppers can find a three-bedroom, stucco-finished, Spanish-tile-roofed home in a gated community, after a $20,000 markdown from when it was initially listed just a few weeks ago.

6. Ogden, UT

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 21.5%
Median list price: $550,000

7. Columbia, SC

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 19.8%
Median list price: $301,696

8. Nashville, TN

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 19.0%
Median list price: $517,765

9. Flint, MI

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 18.8%
Median list price: $189,338

10. Colorado Springs, CO

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 18.7%
Median list price: $499,000

Metros With The Fewest Price Reductions

1. Syracuse, NY

Portion of listings with a price reduction in February: 4.5%
Median list price in February: $226,610

A combination of affordability, a strong local economy, and limited supply has helped boost home values in Syracuse homes, without much of a stutter after last year’s interest-rate hikes. Prices in this college town are up 15% year-over-year, and fewer than one in every 20 listings has seen a price reduction.

“No part of this market is going down in price right now,” says Chip Hodgkins, an associate broker at Hodgkins Homes Team of Hunt Real Estate in Syracuse.

Big investments in recent years, especially in the manufacturing and technology industries, have led to more jobs and more people who need places to live—but not enough properties to go around.

“So everything is selling, because of the one thing that governs pricing, which is supply,” Hodgkins says. “Supply is low, so prices stay up.”

2. Bridgeport, CT

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 4.9%
Median list price: $963,450

The Bridgeport metro, which includes the well-known, ultra-upscale towns along the Long Island Sound, such as Greenwich, CT and Westport, CT, is the most expensive of all the metros on this list. This is due in no small part to the easy commute between Fairfield County and New York City.

The city of Bridgeport itself is significantly less upmarket or expensive than those smaller bedroom communities to the south, closer to Manhattan, but it has its charms. Among them are Seaside Park, a 2.5-mile-long beach park, with trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, and scenic views; and Pleasure Beach, a small island off the Bridgeport coast that’s popular for fishing and boating.

Bridgeport metro home prices dipped by more than 10% in the second half of 2022, but bounced back in the past couple months, hitting an all-time high in February.

3. Reading, PA

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 6.1%
Median list price: $294,600

Just a little more than an hour’s drive northwest of Philadelphia, this medium-sized, Rust Belt metro is another area where prices have been on a steady incline and seem impervious to the downturn affecting other areas.

Home prices hit an all-time high in February, and only a small portion of sellers have had to drop their price to sell.

The area’s relatively (very) affordable prices help. Home listings in the area have consistently been around 30% below the national average. So despite the higher monthly payments required by today’s higher interest rates, buyers can still find a lot of home for a discount in Reading.

Home shoppers in Reading can have a large, five-bedroom townhome, only five minutes from the center of Reading, for just $230,000, discounted twice this month.

4. Barnstable, MA

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 6.2%
Median list price: $874,975

Barnstable, better known as Cape Cod, has been a primary vacation destination for more than a century, among well-heeled Bostonians and New Yorkers craving scenic, seaside getaways. Demand in the area really took off during the pandemic as deep-pocketed, newly remote workers headed out of the cities and into areas with more space and more natural beauty. Barnstable has also become a top retirement destination in the Northeast.

But there isn’t a lot of room to build here. And with ocean-view homes fetching a premium, the price per square foot is higher in Barnstable than in any other metro on the list.

It’s no wonder that the prices have continued to rise, even as the rest of the country has seen prices plateau or dip. In Barnstable, prices are up almost 7% year-over-year, and they are up 5% just since the middle of 2022, bucking the overall market trend.

5. Manchester, NH

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 6.4%
Median list price: $562,200

These days, a list of top markets isn’t complete without Manchester, which has snagged the No. 1 spot on Realtor.com’s hottest market list 20 times. This historic town, just across the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border might not seem “affordable” at first glance—the median listing price is more than 30% higher than the U.S. average. But compared to Boston, about an hour northwest of Manchester, the smaller city is a steal. Homes here cost about 30% less than Boston metro’s median $799,000 price tag.

“Right now, with a lot of people moving around and the overall lack of inventory, Manchester has become a place with a lot to offer,” says Sabrina Zyla, the owner and broker of All Inclusive Realty.

High rental prices are also accelerating the local home sales market.

“If you’ve got a two-bedroom rental, and the price went from $2,000 to $2,500, you are starting to think about what a mortgage would cost for something comparable in a place like Manchester—or even some of the less expensive nearby areas,” says Zyla.

6. Madison, WI

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 6.4%
Median list price: $446,900

7. Portland, ME

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 6.7%
Median list price: $590,000

8. Omaha, NE

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 7.1%
Median list price: $230,350

9. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 7.2%
Median list price: $434,950

10. Providence, RI

Portion of listings with a price reduction: 7.8%
Median list price: $498,125

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