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Seattle leads all major U.S. metropolitan areas in concessions for home buyers as the trend continues to escalate nationally.

Home sellers gave concessions to buyers in a whopping 71.3% of transactions during the first quarter of 2025, nearly double the mark from a year ago. In 2024, just 36.4% of house real estate transactions included concessions. Not only does Seattle lead all metro regions in 2025, it’s also the largest year-over-year increase among the metros Redfin analyzed.

Seller concessions are a strategic arrangement in a real estate transaction where the seller covers certain costs or fees associated with purchasing a home. This could a number of things, including covering closing costs, repairs for a stretch of time, inspection fees, property taxes, and attorney fees.

Redfin claimed the increase in seller concessions is due to a “sluggish” demand for home purchases, with reasons ranging from the region’s high prices, taxes, and overall economic uncertainty. Redfin reported that 13% of pending home sales were canceled in March.

“It’s super common to see seller concessions for condos and new-construction townhomes, but less so for single-family homes—unless the single-family home has been sitting on the market for a while,” Redfin agent Stephanie Kastner said in a press release. “Condos have become a tougher sell because of skyrocketing HOA fees and insurance.”

Nationally, sellers are giving concessions to buyers in 44.4% of the house transactions Redfin has processed in 2025—5% more compared in 2024 and quickly approaching the 45.1% record the first quarter of 2023 set.

“Buyers used to ask for concessions to cover little things like repairs. Now they’re negotiating concessions so they can afford to buy a home,” Chaley McVay, a Redfin Premier real estate agent, said. “A lot of sellers are offering money for mortgage-rate buydowns, and I recently had one seller cover seven months of HOA fees for the buyer.”

Other metropolitan areas’ concession rates

Following Seattle, the only major city that cleared 70% of its home sales with a concession, Portland is the next closest at 63.9%, followed by Atlanta (61.5%), San Diego (60.7%), Denver (59.2%), Los Angeles (56.1%), Sacramento (52.5%), Las Vegas (51.9%), Riverside (51.2%), and Phoenix (51.2%).

No other major metropolitan area cleared 50%. The lowest rates of including concessions in home sales were New York (5.5%), San Francisco (14.9%), San Jose (16.7%), Boston (18.7%), and Chicago (26.4%).

In addition to New York having the least overall concessions, it also had the largest year-over-year drop, down 15.7%. The next biggest declines were in Miami (-13.1%), San Antonio (-10.9%), Tampa (-9.2%), and Phoenix (-3.5%).

“Housing markets across Florida and Texas have been cooling for a while, and prices are now falling in many parts of those states,” Redfin stated. “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.”

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