Same Number of Closings, Two Very Different Negotiations

In the week of August 24 to 31, two zip codes in this territory closed almost the same number of homes, but sellers in one of them cut price far more often than sellers in the other.

Two zip codes in this territory closed almost the same number of homes last week. If that's all you knew, you'd guess they were the same market.

You'd be wrong.

Across the territory as a whole, supply sits at 3.10 months. On paper, that reads like a market that still favors sellers. But that single number hides a split that's already showing up zip by zip, and it's clearest when you set two of them side by side.

In the week of August 24 to 31, one zip closed 50 homes. Only 9 of its active listings had a price cut behind them. That's a market where sellers mostly got what they were asking without needing to move off the number.

Another zip closed 54 homes in the same week, almost identical volume. But 39 of its listings carried a price cut. More than four times the number, at a comparable pace of closings. Same number of deals getting done. A very different road to get there.

The sale prices back this up. Over the four weeks ending August 30, the quieter zip's median sale price, $465,000, actually landed above its median list price of $450,000. Sellers there weren't leaving money at the table.

In the harder-negotiated zip, it ran the other way. Median sale price came in at $580,500 against a median list price of $639,900 over the same four weeks. That's a real gap between what sellers asked for and what buyers actually paid, at the middle of the market, not just at the edges.

Here's the complication. The single biggest price reduction anywhere in the territory this period wasn't in either of these two zips. It was a $320,000 cut on a Kingston Pike listing that had already sat for 103 days. The largest cuts in this territory this period are concentrated in the luxury tier, homes priced well above what most buyers here are shopping for, sitting for months before a seller moved. So the pressure to cut isn't spread evenly even where cuts are common. Two forces are at work at once: a mid-market squeeze in the busier-cutting zip, and a slower-moving luxury overhang layered on top of the whole territory.

What this means depends on which side of the table you're on.

If you're selling in a zip that looks like the quieter one, where sale prices are holding at or above list, you likely don't need to chase the market down. Price it where the recent closings landed and let it work.

If you're selling somewhere that looks more like the busier-cutting zip, the data says buyers there are already negotiating, and pricing to attract offers instead of pricing to defend a number is what's closing deals at that same pace.

If you're buying in the higher-cut zip, there's real room in that gap between list and sale price to work with. If you're buying where cuts are rare, expect to compete closer to the asking number, because that's what recent closings show sellers are getting.

What's worth watching next is whether that gap between the two zips holds or closes. This is one week measured against four weeks of price data, not a trend line, so it's a snapshot rather than a verdict on where either zip is headed. The number to watch is simple: does the cut count in the busier zip keep climbing while the quieter zip holds near single digits, or does the gap start closing on its own.

Figures in this piece come from zip-level MLS data for the territory. Pamella keeps an eye on this zip by zip, because knowing which room you're negotiating in matters more than knowing the territory average.