There is a version of this conversation I have had probably twenty times this year, and it always starts the same way.
A seller pulls up a home in their neighborhood that sold six months ago. They point at the number. They say, “That’s what I want.”
And I have to tell them the number on the screen is not the number that seller walked away with.
That gap is the single most misunderstood thing in the East Valley market right now. Not rates. Not inventory. The gap between what a home sold for and what the seller actually netted, because more than half of transactions in the $200,000 to $600,000 range across the Phoenix metro are now closing with some form of seller concession.
If you are thinking about selling in Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa, Queen Creek, or San Tan Valley this fall, this is the math you need before you pick a price, not after your home has sat for two months.
WHAT A CONCESSION ACTUALLY DOES TO YOUR NUMBER
A concession is money you give back to the buyer at closing. Usually it shows up as a closing cost credit, or increasingly, as a contribution toward buying down the buyer’s interest rate.
Here is the part that surprises people. Concessions do not show up in the sale price. They show up in the terms.
So when your neighbor’s home closed at $625,000 with a $15,000 credit, the public record says $625,000. Zillow says $625,000. Your neighbor probably told you $625,000, because that is the number that feels good to say at a barbecue.
What actually happened is a $610,000 sale wearing a $625,000 jacket.
Now multiply that across a whole neighborhood of recent sales, and you can see the problem. The comps you are anchoring to are inflated by an average of two to three percent, sometimes more, and nobody corrects for it out loud. Buyers’ agents know it. Listing agents know it. Sellers almost never do, because nobody sits them down and explains it before the listing appointment.
WHY THIS IS HITTING GILBERT AND CHANDLER DIFFERENTLY
This is where it gets specific, and where I think most of the advice floating around right now is too broad to be useful.
Gilbert. Median list price is sitting around $639,000 with roughly 1.6 months of inventory. Median days on market is about 63. That sounds slow, and it is slower than 2022, but it is actually about 14 percent faster than August of last year. Gilbert sellers have more room than they think. The risk in Gilbert is not that homes are not selling. The risk is overpricing by three percent on day one to “leave room for concessions,” which pushes you out of the search filter buyers are actually using and costs you the first two weeks, which are the only two weeks where you have real leverage.
Chandler. Average price is running near $525,000 and down about 2.7 percent year over year. Chandler sellers are the most anxious group I talk to, and I understand why. But Chandler has a structural advantage almost nobody mentions: it is land-locked. There is essentially no new construction competing with your resale home. In Queen Creek and San Tan Valley, a buyer can walk into a builder’s sales office and get a rate buydown to 3.99 percent plus closing cost help on a home nobody has ever lived in. In Chandler, that option barely exists. Your competition is your neighbor, not a national builder with an incentive budget.
Mesa. Median around $436,600, down roughly 3.2 percent. East Mesa is currently the value story of the East Valley, which means you are getting traffic from relocation buyers who priced themselves out of Gilbert. That is real demand, but it is price-sensitive demand, and concessions are how those deals are getting closed.
Queen Creek and San Tan Valley. You are competing directly with builders, and right now those builders are running the most aggressive incentives of the year with several expiring October 31. If you are listing a resale here this fall, you need to know what the sales office down the street is offering, because your buyer already does.
THE TWO WAYS SELLERS GET THIS WRONG
Mistake one: pricing as if concessions are not coming.
You price at $650,000 because that is what the comps say. A buyer offers $640,000 with $12,000 in closing costs. You feel like you are being nickel and dimed, so you counter hard, and the buyer walks because there are three other homes they liked almost as much. Six weeks later you take $628,000 with concessions anyway, except now you have carried two more mortgage payments and your listing has the stink of days on market on it.
Mistake two: padding the price to absorb the concession.
This is the one that feels smart and usually is not. You list at $665,000 planning to give back $15,000, so you land where you wanted. The problem is that buyers search in round brackets. A buyer whose ceiling is $650,000 will never see your home. You have removed yourself from a slice of the buyer pool to protect a number you were going to give back anyway. And the appraisal still has to support the contract price when the concession is baked in.
The version that works is neither of those. Price at the real number, know your concession budget before you list, and treat it as a negotiating tool you deploy on purpose rather than a surprise you react to.
WHAT I ACTUALLY RECOMMEND RIGHT NOW
Know your net before you know your price. Work backward. What do you need to walk away with? Subtract commission, title, prorated taxes, likely repair credits, and a concession allowance of two to three percent. That is your real floor. Every pricing conversation after that is grounded instead of emotional
Ask what your comps actually closed with, not just what they closed at. This information exists. A good agent can pull it. If nobody has shown you the concession detail on your comps, you have not been given the full picture.
Decide in advance whether you would rather give a rate buydown or a closing cost credit. They can cost you the same and they are not equally attractive to buyers. A buydown lowers a buyer’s monthly payment, which is the number that actually decides whether they can qualify and whether they feel comfortable. A closing cost credit helps them get to the table. Right now, with rates in the 6.4 to 6.9 percent band, the buydown usually buys you more goodwill per dollar.
Get the first two weeks right. In a market with 1.6 months of inventory in Gilbert and 63 median days on market, most of your leverage lives in the first fourteen days. Photography, pricing, and availability matter more than anything you can do in week seven.
THE HONEST SUMMARY
Concessions are not a sign the market is falling apart. They are how deals get made when buyers have some leverage back and rates are where they are. They have been normal in Arizona before and they will be normal again.
What hurts sellers is not the concession. It is finding out about it in week eight, from a buyer, instead of in week zero, from their agent.
I would rather have the uncomfortable conversation before you list. That is a much better week to have it.
If you are weighing a fall listing in Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa, Queen Creek, or San Tan Valley and you want to see what your comps actually closed with, including the concession detail, reach out. I will pull it and walk you through the real net, whether or not you decide to sell this year.
Cheri Smith
REALTOR® | eXp Realty
480-298-5551
cherismithrealtor.com
@cherismith.azrealtor