Despite a buyer-friendly housing market nationwide, homebuyers in parts of California continued to pay above asking price in 2025, according to a new Redfin analysis.
Three of the four metro areas where homebuyers paid above asking price in 2025 were in California. San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland made the list, along with Newark, New Jersey.
Homebuyers in San Francisco paid 3.8% higher than the asking price, according to Redfin. This was the highest premium in the country.
In San Jose, homebuyers paid 2.3% above the asking price, while it was 1.3% in Oakland.
In Newark, homebuyers typically paid 3.1% above the asking price.
Bay Area Cities Still Command Above-List Prices
The Bay Area housing market has seen high demand amid growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector and a return-to-office trend, according to the analysis.
It is also common for Bay Area homes to sell at a premium, as sellers are known to intentionally underprice properties to spark bidding wars, Redfin noted. However, that premium has been shrinking.
While these four cities bucked the national trend, the overall housing market in 2025 was mostly buyer-friendly, according to Redfin.
Most Homebuyers Paid Less Than Asking Price
The typical homebuyer who purchased a home less than the asking price enjoyed a 7.9% discount, the highest since 2012.
In dollar terms, the discount amounted to $31,592, which was calculated by applying the 7.9% average discount to the previous year’s median original list price of $399,900.
Among all the homebuyers, the average discount was 3.8% or $15,196, according to Redfin.
Discounts are increasingly common, partly because homes are tough to price, with evolving market dynamics that vary from one place to another, said Redfin Senior Economist Asad Khan. While the demand for homes is strong in some regions, it is weakening in some areas.
California Market Split Between Coastal Tech Hubs and Inland Metros
California’s housing market was divided between the high-demand coastal tech areas and other metros, according to the study.
In cities like Los Angeles and Riverside, buyers secured modest discounts (1.9% and 3.1%), indicating that these cities are offering buyers more negotiating power.
In Anaheim, more than 59% of homes sold below the original list price. The average discount across all homes sold was 2.2%, while homes that sold below the list price averaged a 6% discount.
Homebuyers in West Palm Beach scored a 10.9% discount, accounting for the largest among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, according to Redfin. This was followed by Detroit (10.3%), Fort Lauderdale (10.3%), Pittsburgh (9.9%) and Miami (9.8%).
The Redfin study was based on an analysis of annual MLS data comparing original list prices with final sale prices.
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