Across the country, homebuyers have the upper hand. But it’s a seller’s market in Montco, Chesco, and Bucks.
Homebuyers outnumber sellers in Montgomery, Chester, and Bucks Counties, making this region one of only five seller's markets among the country's largest housing markets.
In most of the country’s largest housing markets, more people are selling homes than buying them, giving buyers more chances to get a home.
But in most of Philadelphia’s collar counties, buyers outnumber sellers, which gives sellers an advantage as more people compete for their properties.
In August, the combined market that the real estate brokerage Redfin calls Montgomery, Chester, and Bucks Counties was one of only five seller’s markets out of the 49 most-populous U.S. markets that Redfin analyzed. There were about 5,800 sellers and almost 7,300 buyers in the market last month.
The area’s place in Redfin’s list reflects strong demand for homes and a housing supply that isn’t keeping up.
“You actually have increasing demand,” said Chen Zhao, head of economics at Redfin. And “your supply is actually decreasing rather than increasing, which is what you see in most parts of the country.”
But the region is more buyer friendly than it used to be. In the years after the start of the pandemic, the gap between the shares of sellers and buyers was twice what it was this August. Only last year did the gap start narrowing significantly as more sellers entered the market, Zhao said.
Redfin used a model to estimate the number of homebuyers and home listing data to estimate the number of sellers.
A lot of buyer’s markets
Almost three-quarters of the major metros Redfin looked at — 36 of 49 — were buyer’s markets in August, meaning sellers outnumbered buyers. (One of the country’s 50 biggest metros, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., did not have enough data for the analysis.)
Homebuyers in buyer’s markets tend to have the upper hand in negotiations, because they have more choices, and sellers compete for them instead of the other way around. Housing supply has increased as homes hit the market that builders started constructing years ago and homeowners who didn’t want to give up their low mortgage rates are forced by life circumstances to sell, Zhao said.
But the picture isn’t all rosy for the country’s buyers. Home prices and mortgage interest rates continue to climb, pricing some people out of the housing market. Nationally, home-buying demand has dropped slowly and steadily over the last few years, Zhao said.
But there are opportunities for those who can afford to purchase a home, whether with household wealth or homebuyer assistance programs.
The combined market that Redfin defines as Philadelphia and Delaware County is a buyer’s market. It had about 5,900 buyers and about 8,900 sellers in August.
But because of continuing demand, it’s still one of the five markets where sellers were least likely to give concessions to buyers in August, according to a separate Redfin report. These buyer incentives include covering closing costs and paying for repairs.
Comparing markets
The Nashville area had the strongest buyer’s market in the country in August, according to Redfin. It had more than double the number of home sellers compared to buyers.
That was also true in the metros of Miami, Orlando, and Las Vegas, and the Texas metros of Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas.
In the Nashville metro, the market turned more strongly in favor of buyers last month, because the number of home listings rose 4% from the previous month, while the number of buyers dropped by only 0.4%.
Redfin considered eight housing markets to be balanced, with roughly the same number of buyers and sellers in August. Balanced markets include New Brunswick, N.J.; New York; and Baltimore.
