Home sellers are offering more incentives as the buyers' market deepens. Redfin said concessions appeared in 44.7% of home sales in the U.S. in August, up 2.1 percentage points from a year earlier and the highest August share since at least 2020.
The brokerage said sellers outnumbered buyers by 58% in August, the largest gap in its records. That imbalance has pushed more owners to offer mortgage rate buy-downs, pay for repairs, include household appliances, or provide concessions totaling $10,000 to $20,000. In Atlanta, one agent even offered a free week-long Airbnb stay owned by the seller, while another in Charlotte, North Carolina, offered an all-expenses-paid cruise.
The numbers come first. Redfin said 15.8% of homes nationwide saw both a price drop and a concession in August, up from 15.6% a year earlier and the highest share since it began collecting that data point. Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said concessions are an important, and often overlooked, way to measure the housing market.
Fairweather said the national median home price was up about 2% year over year as of August, but she speculated that a fuller accounting of concessions would paint a different picture. 'This is more of a guesstimate,' Fairweather said. 'But I think if we were to quantify all these concessions...we would see that home prices are down, and people are getting better deals.'
The heaviest concentration of concessions was in the Sun Belt, where post-pandemic construction has added supply for buyers. Atlanta had the highest prevalence, with 72.8% of homebuying deals including a concession. Charlotte followed at 67.9%.
By contrast, New York saw concessions in only 5.7% of sales, while San Francisco had 18.6%. Those markets remain tighter, with wealthier buyers helping keep supply low.
Mortgage rates near 7% are also weighing on demand, making borrowers more cautious. Redfin said the market's direction will depend on inflation, tariff pressures, the Iran war, and concerns about a growing AI bubble. Fairweather also said the Federal Reserve's recent rate hike and expected hikes for the rest of the year have already been priced in.
For now, the housing market is sending a clear signal: sellers are doing the discounting, not buyers. That is what a weak market looks like when inventory rises and financing gets more expensive. Capital rewards clear terms, and in housing, those terms are being written in concessions, not price strength.
