It's a buyer's market, and the receipts are in: sellers paid concessions on nearly half of sales

The balance of power in housing has flipped, and this time there is a paper trail. Sellers gave buyers a concession in 46.2% of U.S. home sales in May 2026, the highest May share Redfin has ever recorded, up from 43.1% a year earlier. On top of that, 15.7% of May sales carried both a price cut and a concession, also a record for the month. Nearly half of all sellers are now paying something to get the deal done, and a growing share are cutting the price and paying at the table.

The reason is not complicated. There are roughly 47% more sellers than buyers in the market as of this spring, per Redfin. When the crowd on the listing side outnumbers the crowd on the buying side by that much, price is not the only thing that gives. Terms give too. The seller who will not budge on the number will pay your closing costs, or buy down your rate, or replace the roof, because the alternative is another 30 days on market with no offers.

This is balance, not a crash

Be precise about what the data says, because "buyer's market" gets stretched into "collapse" fast. Existing-home sales ran at a 4.09 million annualized pace in June, down 2.4% from May, with 4.6 months of supply. Housing economists call four to six months of supply a balanced market. The national median existing-home price was still $440,600 in June, the 36th straight month of year-over-year gains. Prices are near record highs. What changed is not price direction. It is leverage. Buyers finally have some, and sellers finally have to spend to close.

The Florida proof

Watch the shift land in a single Florida metro. In Orlando, median days on market has stretched to about 32, up from roughly 22 a year ago, per Redfin, with inventory up sharply over the same stretch. That is the whole market in one statistic. A year ago a well-located home was a two-week event. Now it is a month, and a month is long enough that a seller starts negotiating instead of waiting for the next bidding war that is not coming. The same lengthening is showing up across the state, from Tampa Bay to Jacksonville to the Gulf Coast, as inventory rebuilds.

The tell is right there on individual streets. A home that sold in 2025 with competing offers and no seller help gets relisted a few doors down in 2026 and closes with a rate buydown and a price reduction. Same block, same schools, same square footage, different market entirely. The well-priced homes still move. The stale ones sit, and sitting is what hands the buyer the leverage.

Florida also splits by geography, so read the shift where you actually plan to buy. Inland metros run tighter than the coastal beach towns, where listings sit longer and supply runs looser. A concession a Tampa or Sarasota seller grants grudgingly, a Fort Myers or Panhandle beach seller sitting on 90 days will offer before you ask. Two markets, two different negotiating positions, and knowing which one you are standing in is worth more than any script.

The trap buyers are falling into

Plenty of Florida buyers are still negotiating on 2022 instincts, when asking for a concession felt like a good way to lose the house to someone who did not ask. That reflex is now backwards. In a market handing out concessions on nearly half of sales, the buyer who does not ask is the outlier leaving money on the table. The question is no longer whether to ask. It is what to ask for, and where to point it so it does the most good.

The move

If you are buying anywhere in Florida, ask for the concession. The data says you will usually get one. Then aim it where it lowers your payment the most, which for most buyers this year means a seller-paid rate buydown rather than a straight price cut. Bring your agent the comps that show recent sellers paying, so the ask reads as market-standard, not aggressive. If you are selling, do the opposite math: budget a concession into your net from day one and price sharply, because the homes getting bid are the ones that came in clean, not the ones testing a number the market will not support.

REHL flags days-on-market and price history on every listing on our broker sites, so you can see which sellers are ready to deal before you write the offer.