Best place to haggle your home price? Florida
Nationally, homebuyers negotiated a median discount of 3.3% in August. Of the 25 cities with biggest median discounts, 14 were in Florida.
30 yr fixed | 3.80% |
15 yr fixed | 3.20% |
5/1 ARM | 3.84% |
30 yr refi | 3.82% |
15 yr refi | 3.20% |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If you're a house hunter in Florida, prepare to haggle. The Sunshine State is the easiest place to negotiate a price cut on your new home.
Of the 25 cities with biggest median discounts in August, 14 of them were in Florida, according to a report released Thursday by Zillow.com.
But hurry, because negotiating a better deal is getting harder. Nationwide, buyers got a median discount of 3.3% -- or $7,039 off the last listing price -- on homes they purchased in July. But in June, the discount was 3.5%. Back in January, the median cut was worth 4.6%.
"The strong summer selling season in 2009 has led to a decreasing difference between the last listing price and final sale price, but most buyers are still getting some additional discount at selling time," said Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist.
The city where sellers offered the deepest price cuts was Vero Beach, Fla. Buyers there negotiated prices down by 10.2%, a savings of $23,500.
Other Florida hot spots were Sarasota (8.2% discount), Naples (7.8%) and Daytona Beach (7.5%).
"The fact that many Florida markets are still showing comparatively higher differences between the last listing price and final sale price suggests that inventory levels are still relatively high, keeping considerable downward pressure on prices and encouraging buyers to seek large discounts off the listing price," said Humphries.
The dollar size of the discount was biggest in Stamford, Conn., where high home prices meant the median discount of 5.9% translated into $32,099. Naples, Fla., buyers got $27,233 off their purchases, and Atlantic City, N.J., buyers slashed what they paid by a median of $23,082.