Published October 8, 2026 in Market Update

Most 28277 sellers paid the buyer at closing

By Josh Burnett

Real estate, Update 28277

Everyone talks about what a home sold for. Nobody talks about what happened after that number was agreed on. The sale price gets written up, the sign comes down, and people assume the seller walked away with that full amount. In 28277, most of them did not. I pulled every listing through October 7, 2026, and here is what happened.

Getting your price and keeping it are two different things

The typical home in 28277 sold at 98.9% of its last asking price. That sounds close. But the sale price is not the same as what the seller took home. Sellers paid money back to the buyer at closing on 580 of the 957 sales in this data. That is 60.6% of all sales. More than half.

The typical amount paid back was $5,000. That is not nothing, but it is not the part that surprises people. The part that surprises people is the 26 homes that sold at or over their asking price and still paid back $20,000 or more. One home on Piper Glen Drive sold for $1,550,000, at or above what the seller asked, and then paid $75,000 back. The sale price looked like a win. The closing statement told a different story.

I have been in that position. You agree on a number, you feel good, and then the negotiation keeps going inside the contract. Repairs. Closing costs. Rate buydowns. The buyer's loan is expensive, and the seller ends up funding the gap. With the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.28% as of October 1, 2026 (Freddie Mac), buyers are feeling that payment every month. Sellers are feeling it at the closing table.

The concession is baked into the deal before you even list

Right now, 66% of the 265 homes for sale in 28277 have already dropped their price. The typical price drop is $26,000. That is before any buyer asks for anything at the table. So a seller drops $26,000 to get an offer, then pays another $5,000 back at closing. The number on the sign and the number on the check are not the same.

The data also shows that homes taking longer to sell gave up more. The typical home that sold in the first month got 100% of what it first asked. Homes that took four months got 91%. Homes that took five to six months got 90.9%. Every week a home sits, the seller's position gets a little softer.

The bedroom count matters too. The typical 4-bedroom home sold in 12 days and got 98.4% of what it first asked. The typical 2-bedroom home took 35 days and got 96%. Six-bedroom homes took 46 days and got 93.2%. The bigger the home, the longer it tends to sit, and the more the seller tends to give back. That pattern held across price ranges as well. Homes priced under $450,000 got 96.2% of what they first asked. Homes priced from $700,000 to $950,000 got 98.6%. The middle of the market, from $450,000 to $600,000, got 98.3%. Pricing into a range where buyers are already active is one of the few things a seller can control before the first showing.

What this means for you, on either side of the table

If you are selling, the question to ask before you list is not just what price you want. It is what price you are willing to net after a drop and a concession. In 28277, the typical seller started at $650,000, and the typical home that gave up started at $610,000. A $40,000 gap in the first asking price separated the homes that sold from the ones that never did. Price it where buyers are already looking, and you are less likely to fund their closing costs too.

If you are buying, the concession is real leverage right now. 60.6% of sellers paid something back, and that share is not going away while rates stay where they are. Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed rate at 7.28% as of October 1, 2026, up from 6.34% a year ago. Buyers are asking sellers to help cover that cost, and more than half of sellers are saying yes. Know what to ask for and when to ask for it.