Nearly Half of Buyers Are Getting Seller Concessions; Riverside Is at 58%; Bay Area Buyers Are Playing a Different Game
There is a weird thing happening in housing right now.
Nationally, buyers have more negotiating power than they have had in years.
But if you are buying in California, where you are buying matters enormously.
Redfin reported that sellers gave concessions in 44.7% of U.S. home sales in August, the highest August share in its data going back to 2020. Concessions can include help with closing costs, repairs or mortgage-rate buydowns.
Now look at California.
Riverside: 58%
Los Angeles: 56.2%
San Diego: 57.1%
San Francisco: 18.6%
San Jose: 4.2%
Same state.
Completely different negotiating environments.
I. BUYERS HAVE LEVERAGE — BUT NOT EVERYWHERE
This is why I hate broad statements like:
“It’s a buyer’s market.”
Or:
“Sellers aren’t negotiating.”
Both can be true depending on the property and location.
Redfin says sellers nationally outnumbered buyers by 58% in August, the largest gap in its records going back to 2013.
But San Francisco is actually one of only a handful of major markets Redfin currently classifies as a seller’s market.
That explains why a buyer in Riverside may be negotiating thousands of dollars in concessions while a buyer competing for the right San Francisco property may have very little leverage.
This is not one housing market.
It is hundreds of little housing markets operating at the same time.
And buyers need to negotiate accordingly.
II. A SELLER CONCESSION MAY BE WORTH MORE THAN A SMALL PRICE CUT
This is the part I wish more buyers understood.
Suppose a buyer purchases a home for $800,000.
A seller agrees to either:
A. Reduce the price by $10,000
or
B. Give the buyer a $10,000 concession toward allowable closing costs or financing
Those two options do not necessarily create the same benefit.
If the buyer is financing most of the purchase, a $10,000 price reduction may only reduce the monthly payment modestly.
But $10,000 toward closing costs or an appropriate rate buydown could preserve cash or potentially make a much larger difference in the buyer's near-term payment.
The exact benefit depends on loan type, seller-contribution limits, pricing and the borrower's situation.
But the point is simple:
Do the math before automatically asking for a lower price.
Sometimes the more valuable negotiation is not:
“Will you take $10,000 less?”
It is:
“What can we make that $10,000 do for the buyer?”
III. THIS IS ALSO A LISTING STRATEGY
Sellers should be thinking about this too.
Redfin found 15.8% of homes sold nationally in August had both a price reduction and a seller concession.
That tells me some sellers are reaching for multiple levers to get a transaction done.
And this is where financing strategy can become part of the listing strategy.
Instead of repeatedly reducing the asking price, sellers and listing agents can evaluate whether a concession, temporary buydown, permanent rate buydown or other financing structure could make the home more attractive to the right buyer.
That is also why I have been talking so much about Seller Pre-Lock.
You are essentially taking something buyers obsess over — the monthly payment — and bringing it into the marketing conversation before the offer even arrives.
It will not make sense on every property.
But neither does blindly cutting the price.
THE BAY AREA IS THE PERFECT EXAMPLE
This data also shows why agents should be careful copying a strategy from another California market.
In Riverside, nearly three out of five buyers received some type of concession.
In San Jose, it was roughly one out of twenty-five.
That is an enormous difference.
A strategy that makes perfect sense in Riverside may be completely unnecessary in San Jose.
And the same thing can happen inside a single county.
One listing sits.
Another gets six offers.
One condo has negotiation room.
Another is gone over the weekend.
The property tells you the strategy.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Buyers have more leverage in many parts of the market right now.
Use it intelligently.
Do not automatically assume the best concession is a lower purchase price.
Ask what helps most:
Cash to close?
Monthly payment?
Repairs?
Rate buydown?
Price?
Then structure the offer around the actual problem.
For sellers, the same rule applies.
Before making another price cut, look at whether that money could be used differently to make the property more attractive.
Because in this market, sometimes the negotiation is not about who gives up the most money.
It is about who uses the money better.
About Michael Belfor
Michael Belfor is a Branch Manager and Loan Originator with approximately 24 years of mortgage experience. He has been recognized in American Pacific Mortgage's President's Club and among the company's Top 1% producers since 2017.
Michael works with homebuyers, homeowners, investors and real estate professionals on conventional, jumbo, FHA, VA, down-payment assistance, self-employed and Non-QM financing, DSCR/investment loans, TICs, condos, renovation financing and other complex mortgage scenarios.
seller concessions 2026, California buyer concessions, Riverside housing market, Bay Area housing market, seller credits, mortgage rate buydown
For internal links, I’d point Seller Pre-Lock to your existing Seller Pre-Lock article and potentially link the price-cut discussion to your builder-financing article. You already have both in your library.
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