June City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

Let’s take our monthly 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. The downloadable Excel file also includes charts showing the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings.

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

Of the 161 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area this month, 89 had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more.

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

Of the 56 neighborhoods we ranked in the Boston area this month, 9 had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. On average, the neighborhoods with more price reductions had lower closed prices per square foot.

The general trend in Boston looks to be heading slightly toward less price reductions, however every city and neighborhood is of course different.

March City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

Let’s take our monthly 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. The downloadable Excel file also includes charts showing the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings.

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

Of the 165 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area this month, 116 (70%) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. Holliston and Lunenburg were the only carry-overs from last month’st top ten.

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

Of the 45 neighborhoods we ranked in the Boston area this month, just 6 (13%) had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. Grafton held its spot at #1, moving up from 63% last month to 65% this month. St. Elizabeth’s, Andrew Square / Columbus Park, Oak Square, and Salisbury / West Tatnuck also all carried over from last month’s top ten. These are the neighborhoods where you might want to look for sellers that are more anxious to sell.

We’re still seeing a degree of consistency in which neighborhoods and cities have the most price reductions. Are sellers in these locations just not very good at finding the right market price in the first place, or are they so anxious to sell that they drop the price early and often? Either way, the regions with the really high percentage of reduced-price homes are probably a good place to go bargain-hunting.

February City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

Let’s take our monthly 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. The downloadable Excel file also includes charts showing the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings.

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

Of the 183 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area this month, 138 (75%) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. Only Sharon carried over from last month’s top ten to this month.

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

Of the 51 neighborhoods we ranked in Boston area this month, only these top ten (20%) had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. On the neighborhood level, much of the top ten list remained the same, with the Logan Airport area, Forest Grove, and Grafton Hill all continuing to rank highly.

At the neighborhood level, there is definitely some consistency in the number of homes seeing price reductions. If finding a good deal on a home is important to you, these neighborhoods might be a good place to start, as higher ratios of reduced-price homes indicate sellers that need to sell and are willing to lower the price to do so.

January City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

Let’s take our monthly 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 (saved in Excel 97-2003 .xls format by request). 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 201 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston Area this month, 161 (80%!) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. This is up from about 66% last month. Only Merrimac has consistently been in the top ten for the last three months.

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

Just 11 of the 59 neighborhoods we ranked in the Boston Area had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. East Boston and Logan Airport / Jeffries Point both made the top ten for three months in a row.

For home buyers, cities and neighborhoods that consistently remain near the top of the list for price reductions may be a good place to potentially hunt for bargains. Once a home has been on the market a while, many buyers tend to overlook it, even though a price reduction or two may have brought it into a more desirable price range.

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.

Which Neighborhoods Have the Fastest Price Reductions?

Here’s a fun set of data. Redfin data engineers have dug deep into our market databases to find out which neighborhoods have the fastest price reductions.

For listings with more than one price drop, we calculated the time between each price drop. Then, for each neighborhood, we calculated the median average number of days between successive price drops for listings. Neighborhoods with fewer than 20 reduced-price listings were excluded from the calculation.

Here’s a chart of the top ten neighborhoods with the fastest price reductions:

For those readers that are interested to know which neighborhoods had the slowest price drops, feel free to download the full data set in Excel 2007 format.

Both Indian Lake East and Upper Washington made this month’s top ten neighborhoods with the most price-reduced listings and the fastest price reductions.

On average, neighborhoods where price reductions happen the fastest seem to be those with lower prices, both in terms of overall median and per square foot. The average median sold price per square foot of the top ten neighborhoods with the fastest price reductions was $243, while the ten neighborhoods with the slowest price reductions had an average median sold price of nearly $400 per square foot.

Which Cities, Towns, and Neighborhoods have the most price reductions?

Today Redfin is launching the new Sweet Digs, Analytical Edition. We’re proud to introduce Tim Ellis as the curator of this new effort. Tim will bring the same independent, data-driven perspective to Sweet Digs that first established him as a pre-eminent real estate blogger, but with pricing data that only a broker—and sometimes only Redfin—can access. He will be joined by other bloggers providing real-time insights on how contracts are being negotiated in neighborhoods around the area.

Sweet Digs is still a work in progress so if you have ideas about the types of posts you’d like to see — or if you’d like to contribute an analytical post of your own — just drop me (glenn at redfin dot com) or Tim (the_tim at thatchmound dot com) a line or leave a comment below. Thanks for all your support, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Regards, Glenn Kelman, CEO Redfin

I’d like to thank Glenn and the good people at Redfin for giving me the opportunity to delve into real estate data and share insights with readers from around the country. To kick things off, let’s take a 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.

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

Of the 204 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area, 13 had a price-reduced ratio of over sixty percent, while 79 had fifty percent or more. Outlying Merrimac had the largest percent of homes taken off the market that experienced price reductions. Interestingly, two of the cities on the top ten list—Lincoln and Wayland—are actually fairly close to the city center. For comparison, 43% of homes taken off the market in Boston proper had price reductions.

Here are the top ten cities with the least price-reduced listings:

On average, the cities with the least price-reduced listings are actually further away from Boston than those with the most price-reduced listings.

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

Only one of the top ten neighborhoods for price-reductions is outside Suffolk County—Indian Lake East Not too surprisingly, homes near the airport are the most likely to have had a price drop. Of the 65 neighborhoods we ranked in Redfin’s Boston service area, 16 had a price-reduced ratio of over fifty percent.

Lastly, let’s take a look at which neighborhoods had the least price-reduced listings taken off the market:

Half of the top ten neighborhoods with the least price-reduced listings were outside of Suffolk County.

On average, it seems that sellers in closer-in cities, towns, and neighborhoods in the Boston area are much more likely to reduce their price than sellers in outlying areas. If the present economic downturn continues to deepen, it will be interesting to see if this trend continues.