Finance
What is buyer's market?
A buyer's market is one where available inventory exceeds demand, giving buyers negotiating leverage on price, terms and repairs, and leaving sellers competing for a smaller pool of purchasers.
Markers are the inverse of a seller's market: rising absorption rate, lengthening days on market, price reductions becoming common, and sellers offering concessions such as covering closing costs or funding rate buy-downs.
For sellers, the practical implication is that pricing correctly at launch matters far more than in a hot market. A property that sits accumulating days on market loses leverage continuously.
For buyers, the leverage extends beyond price into contingencies, repair credits and timelines — terms that are often worth more than a headline discount.
Related terms
A seller's market is one where buyer demand exceeds available inventory, giving sellers pricing power, shorter selling times, and frequently multiple competing offers.
Absorption rate measures how quickly available properties are selling in a market, usually expressed as the number of months it would take to sell all current inventory at the recent pace of sales.
Days on market counts how long a listing has been actively for sale since it was published. It is used both as a market-health indicator and, by buyers, as a signal of negotiating room.
A contingency is a condition written into a purchase contract that must be met for the sale to proceed, allowing the buyer to withdraw without losing their deposit if it is not.