April 2026: 61% of Closings Included a Seller Concession

April 2026 closed with 1,246 sales in the Pikes Peak MLS region, and 765 of them - 61.4% - included a seller concession. The average concession, when paid, was $11,893 (median $9,750), against an average sale price of $535,891. Roughly 2.2% of price at the typical sale.

That means six out of every ten April closings involved the seller writing a check at the table beyond just transferring the deed. The 481 sales that closed without any concession were the minority.

By Financing Type

Concessions don't fall evenly across loan products. Government-backed loans - the most cost-constrained buyers - are far more likely to ask for help, and far more likely to get it.

FHA buyers received concessions on 85.5% of April closings - effectively the default. VA buyers got concessions on 72% of closings and the largest dollar amounts at $15,355 average, 3.3% of sale price. That tracks: VA loans require zero down payment, which means closing-cost burden is proportionally larger and more often negotiated onto the seller's side. Cash buyers ask for and get the least, 23% of the time and at smaller amounts - cash trades concession leverage for negotiating leverage on price itself, a pattern documented in our cash vs. financed analysis.

What This Means for Buyers

If you're financing - especially FHA or VA - plan to ask. The data says you're more likely than not to receive a concession in the current market, and the strength of your ask scales with how cleanly your offer reads on the seller's side (timeline, contingencies, earnest money, lender quality). A concession request isn't a tax on a competitive offer; it's a routine line item that six out of ten sellers are agreeing to.

That said, don't assume the concession is free money. It comes off what the seller nets, which means it's part of your total negotiating ask. A $500K offer with a $15K concession request and a $485K offer with no concession look identical to the seller. Yours just routes $15K to your closing-cost obligations instead of into the seller's pocket. Buyers who ask for both an aggressive price and a large concession are asking for two things, and sellers count them separately.

What This Means for Sellers

Build a concession allowance into your pricing, not your negotiating posture. Six in ten April closings included concessions. If you list at a number that assumes none, you'll either reject viable offers or end up doing a price reduction and a concession - the worst of both worlds.

The financing-type data is also a planning tool. If your home is priced at a point where most buyers will be FHA or VA, expect concession requests on nearly every offer and pencil $10K - $15K into your acceptable net. If your home is at a price point that draws cash or strong conventional buyers, the concession ask will be lighter and less frequent - but the buyer will likely push harder on price itself.

The Bigger Picture

April 2026 is a single month, and the headline rate of 61% concession-bearing sales is in line with where this market has lived since late 2024. The takeaway isn't that concessions are good or bad. They're a market signal. When the rate of concessions climbs and the dollar amounts grow, sellers are doing more of the work to close. When they fall, demand is doing more of the lifting. Right now, sellers are doing most of the work - and a buyer who walks in expecting that dynamic to last is making the same mistake a 2021 buyer made expecting bidding wars to last. Markets move. Negotiate the one in front of you.

For broader context on where buyer demand sits today, see Where Are the Buyers.

Methodology: Analysis of 1,246 closed residential transactions in the Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS MLS region with close dates between April 1 and April 30, 2026. Concession amounts taken from the ConcessionsAmount field. Financing type classified from TermsSale.