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 37 cities/towns we ranked in the San Diego area this month, 20 (54%) had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. Seven cities on last month’s top ten carried over to this month’s top ten.

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

Of the 94 neighborhoods we ranked in the San Diego area this month, 34 (36%) had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. Last month’s top four neighborhoods all carried over into this month’s top ten, though only Mountain View and Lake stayed in the top four. 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.