A growing number of home sellers are offering concessions in hopes of successfully wooing homebuyers, according to a Redfin analysis.
About 44% of home sales in the first quarter of this year involved concessions, meaning the sellers offered the buyers perks like money for repairs, closing costs or mortgage-rate buy-downs.
That is up from 39.3% one year earlier and nearly matches the record high of 45.1% reached at the start of 2023.
In the following metro areas, the concessions rate remains especially high, above the national rate.
1. Seattle, WA
Home sales in this metro area that involved a concession:
- In the first quarter of 2025: 71.3% (an increase of 34.9 percentage points)
- In the first quarter of 2024: 36.4%
With so many sellers making concessions in Seattle, now might be the time to move to the Northwest: Seattle ranks among the top 15 cities in the U.S. for quality of life, according to a recent analysis of 53 metrics ranging from life expectancy to workers’ rights.
Just don’t expect it to come cheaply: The median home sale price in Seattle exceeds $800,000 — roughly double the national median.
2. Portland, OR
Home sales in this metro area that involved a concession:
- In the first quarter of 2025: 63.9% (an increase of 14.2 percentage points)
- In the first quarter of 2024: 49.7%
With a median home sale price of more than $500,000, Portland is in the grips of a housing affordability crisis that its housing bureau director, Helmi Hisserich, has described as “dire,” local CBS affiliate KOIN reports.
In an effort to alleviate the problem, the city council recently voted unanimously to adopt a resolution that calls for the city administrator to study and then make recommendations to the council about a potential new housing model, known as social housing. KOIN explains:
“Social housing is owned and managed by the public or non-profits with a focus on affordability and community benefit — as opposed to traditional public housing in the United States, which is reserved for low-income tenants in spaces managed by federally granted housing agencies.”
3. Atlanta, GA
Home sales in this metro area that involved a concession:
- In the first quarter of 2025: 61.5% (an increase of 4.7 percentage points)
- In the first quarter of 2024: 56.9%
Even though most home sellers are giving concessions in Atlanta, the housing market is among a handful in the country with a total value that surpassed the trillion-dollar mark in 2024, as we reported in “8 Housing Markets That Are Now Worth a Trillion Bucks.”
It’s a relatively affordable market, though, with a median home sale price of roughly $450,000.
Other metros where many sellers give concessions
Here are the other markets included in Redfin’s analysis that have concession rates higher than the national rate of about 44%:
- San Diego, CA: 60.7% (down 0.5 percentage points from the first quarter of 2024)
- Denver, CO: 59.2% (down 0.5 percentage points)
- Los Angeles, CA: 56.1% (up 11 percentage points)
- Sacramento, CA: 52.5% (up 4.4 percentage points)
- Las Vegas, NV: 51.9% (up 4 percentage points)
- Riverside, CA: 51.2% (up 2.7 percentage points)
- Phoenix, AZ: 51.2% (down 3.5 percentage points)
- Dallas, TX: 49.3% (down 0.7 percentage points)
- Houston, TX: 46% (up 6.2 percentage points)
- Austin, TX: 45.3% (up 0.7 percentage points)
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