More Atlanta home sellers offering buyer concessions in market shift

Sellers offer concessions to buyers to help pay for closing costs, repairs or mortgage rate buydowns. The report suggests sellers are no longer having things all their own way, and the state of the economy is giving buyers eleventh-hour jitters and killing deals.

Redfin said 13% of pending home sales in the U.S. were canceled in March.

Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said economic uncertainty, including shocks over Trump administration trade policies and stock market turmoil, was contributing to buyer unease. Sellers are making concessions to ensure buyers don’t get cold feet and back out of deals, she said.

“I expect concessions to become more common, and for price growth to fall too. Concessions are an early sign of a softening market,” Fairweather wrote in an email.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

John Ryan, an analyst and chief marketing officer with Georgia Multiple Listing Service, said there was a 46% increase in active listings year over year and signs that the median home price was stabilizing in metro Atlanta.

In Atlanta’s core 12-county region, the median sale price is a little over $400,000, and the interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.81% on April 24, according to Freddie Mac.

Ryan said homebuyers now have more power to negotiate as homes stay on the market longer, and they have more time make a decision before going under contract.

“Sellers are making those concessions to make those properties a little bit more attractive to the buyer,” Ryan said. “Buyers are also negotiating to have those concessions as well.”

Ryan and his data team’s findings for the core 12-county region tracked Redfin’s report, with close to 61% of residential units sold with concessions, compared to 58% in the first quarter of 2024. About 76% of new construction units were sold with concessions in the first quarter of 2025. In contrast, the share of resale units with concessions was about 58%.

Seattle-based Redfin agent Stephanie Kastner told the brokerage firm that she has been seeing more concessions for new construction condos and townhomes and less for single-family homes.

Nationally, Redfin said housing supply had hit a five-year high. In Seattle, 71% of sellers are offering concessions, which was almost double the share from a year ago, according to the report.

Inflated prices are another reason homes are staying on the market longer, and sellers are more willing to offer concessions to buyers, according to Redfin.

A July 2024 report suggested Atlanta was the second-most overpriced property market in the nation, according to researchers at Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University.

Other Sun Belt cities — Miami, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; and Tampa, Florida — also saw some of the sharpest declines in concessions. Prices in Florida and Texas are now falling, Redfin says.

“Sellers in Florida and Texas have had more time to get used to a slow market, and have started pricing their homes lower from the get-go, meaning they often don’t need to offer concessions,” the report states.

There are signs that inventory in those states are above pre-pandemic levels, according to an analysis of Realtor.com data by the media and research company ResiClub.

It’s a far cry from the COVID-19-era housing frenzy that came during the spring and summer of 2021, when people were putting in cash offers and inventory sank to record lows as home prices soared.

“Now, it has definitely cooled,” Ryan said, also attributing the shifts to rising interest rates, inflation and economic uncertainty.

Credit: Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com

Credit: Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com