City/Town/Neighborhood December Price Reduction Update

Let’s take another look at which cities and towns have the most price reductions.

The following charts show the percent of MLS, FSBO or REO listings that were price-reduced at some point before leaving the market (either sold or removed unsold from the market) in the past 90 days. Cities/towns or neighborhoods in which the number of homes taken off the market was too small to provide believable estimates are excluded from ranking.

For those that are interested, I have uploaded the full data set in Excel format here. In order to keep from overwhelming you with charts, I am leaving out the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings from the post, but you can still see that chart in the downloaded file.

First up are the top ten cities with the most price-reduced listings:

Of the 206 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area, 135 (roughly two thirds) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. Topsfield, Ayer, and Merrimac all made the top ten last month and this month, with a consistently high volume of price reductions.

Getting a little more granular, let’s look at the top ten Boston area neighborhoods for price reductions:

18 of the 64 neighborhoods we ranked in the Boston area had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. Five neighborhoods—Telegraph Hill, River Street / West Street, Upper Washington, East Boston, and Logan Airport / Jeffries Point—all carried over from last month’s top ten as well.

On the neighborhood level (but not at the city/town level), there is a slight tendency for neighborhoods with lower listing prices (per square foot) to have a larger share of reduced-price listings. If you’re looking for sellers that might be more willing to negotiate a lower price, these would be the places to look.