Here’s where your clients can actually negotiate on price
On the other hand, Hartford, Connecticut, offers the least room to negotiate. Just 10.6% of its listings carry a reduction, and the typical home sells at roughly 104.3% of list price.
Buyers targeting the broader Northeast or coastal California — where San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, New York, and Providence all sit above list price on average — should expect competition and limited concession leverage.
Seller concessions hit a record high in May, according to separate Redfin data, suggesting that brokers who structure rate buydowns or closing-cost credits into offers can turn softening list prices into meaningful affordability gains for clients, particularly in the buyer-friendly markets identified in the new study.
The window may be closing
The favorable conditions for buyers appear widespread but fragile. Price-drop activity declined in more than half of the 50 metros over the past year, and the sale-to-list-price ratio climbed in more than a third, signals that leverage may be drifting back toward sellers in markets where it had recently appeared.
