Biggest Discounts March Update

Let’s have an update on where buyers are currently getting the biggest discount off the asking price. Our goal in sharing this data is to help potential buyers to know which neighborhoods are softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, to better equip you when making an offer, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the chart below, we have taken all sales data from the last two months in the Seattle area (King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties) and sorted it by zip code. We calculated the overall difference between the sale price and the list price. Note that this reflects the final list price, after all price drops in the listing. Any zips with fewer than ten sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings, but interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

For a quick look at where a given zip code is located, just type it into the Redfin search box, or drop by the handy USNaviguide.com zip code map.

Here are the top ten zip codes with the largest overall discount:

The overall discount for the Seattle area bumped up slightly from last month’s 4.2% up to 4.4%.

Here’s a map of the top ten discounted zip codes, courtesy of USNaviguide.com:

As you can see, the most discounted neighborhoods are spread fairly evenly around King County, with a couple popping up in Pierce and none in Snohomish.

Here are the ten zip codes with the smallest discounts:

Of the 3,136 sales we tracked in the 2-month period, just 28 homes sold for more than 20% off the asking price, while 409 homes sold for more than asking.

As a whole, the Seattle area is trending toward slightly larger discounts. As we continue to watch this data we will be able to get a better picture of what sale-to-list discounts tell us about the overall health of the local real estate market. Once we get enough data points, we’ll be able to plot the overall discount trend on a line chart for an interesting picture of the market.