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 112 cities/towns we ranked in LA County, only 3 had a price-reduced ratio of sixty percent or more, and only 17 came in with fifty percent or more. Most of the cities with lots of price reductions are fairly close to Los Angeles proper, where 44% of homes taken off the market had price reductions.

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

The high desert makes a strong showing in the least price-reduced list, with the Antelope Valley cities of Lancaster and Palmdale taking spots 3 and 8. Of course, it is also worth noting that homes in the high desert are already relatively cheap, with both cities showing a median sold price per square foot of under $100.

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

47 of the 186 neighborhoods we ranked in Los Angeles County had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. Most of the neighborhoods with lots of price reductions are between downtown and the beach, with the notable exception of the mountainside neighborhood of East Central, coming in at #10.

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

Condos in the New Downtown corner are selling (or leaving the market) with fewer price reductions than any part of the county by far, with the larger Downtown region only slightly behind. There’s also apparently still some fairly strong demand to live beachside in Santa Monica, as Ocean Park picks up the #2 spot.

There are no particularly noticable patterns in the data between neighborhoods with many price reductions and those with few. If you’re looking for a home, be sure to look around at nearby neighborhoods, where there may be significantly more price reductions.