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 241 cities/towns we ranked in the DC area, 51 had a price-reduced ratio of over sixty percent, while 146 had fifty percent or more. Coming in at a surprisingly high 78%, Forest Glen had the largest percent of homes taken off the market that experienced price reductions. For comparison, just 44% of homes taken off the market in the District of Columbia had price reductions. Most of the cities/towns in the top ten are north and east of DC in Maryland, with Aquia Harbour being the only place in Virginia to make the cut.

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

West Virginia makes an appearance on the least price-reduced list, as neighboring Charles Town and the Corporation of Ranson come in at #2 and #6, respectively. Over in the center of the Delmarva Peninsula, home sellers in Salisbury were by far the least willing to drop their prices.

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

Six of the top ten neighborhoods for price-reductions were in Baltimore. Of the 154 neighborhoods we ranked in Redfin’s DC service area, 44 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:

The District of Columbia dominated the least price-reduced list, taking five of the top ten spots.

Interestingly, while none of the top ten neighborhoods with the most price-reductions had a median closed house price greater than $300,000, six out of the top ten least price-reduced neighborhoods had median house prices in excess of $500,000. It would seem that the more ritzy the neighborhood, the less likely it is that sellers will reduce their asking prices.