A price cut costs more
than the cut.
For a DC row house owner setting a first asking price, or one whose listing has sat. If you are buying, the same numbers tell you which houses have room to negotiate.
What does a price cut cost a DC row house seller?
About 8.5 points of the first asking price, and two months. Over the last twelve months, DC row houses that cut their price sold at a median 91.5% of the first asking price after 74 days on the market. Houses that never cut sold at 100% in 9 days. On a house first listed at $1M, that is $915,000 against $1,000,000.
| Never cut | Cut the price | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of sales | 69.9% | 30.1% |
| Median sale, % of first ask | 100% | 91.5% |
| Median days on market | 9 | 74 |
| On a $1M first ask | $1,000,000 | $915,000 |
How common are price cuts on DC row houses?
30% of sales. Of 1,710 fee simple row houses that sold in the last twelve months, 30.1% cut the asking price before they went under contract. The median cut was 5.7% of the first asking price.
Does cutting the price fix it?
It sells the house, but below where it started. The median cut was 5.7%, yet the houses that cut closed 8.5% under their first asking price: about 97% of the reduced price. The cut closes part of the gap, not all of it.
What happens if the listing expires and the house comes back?
It usually sells for less than the price it failed at. In the last twelve months, 269 DC row houses sold within a year of an expired, canceled or withdrawn listing. They sold at a median 93.2% of the last price they failed at, a median 111 days after the listing came off. 10.4% got that price or more.
How do I avoid a price cut?
Set the first asking price from the closed sales, before the house goes on the market. The sales on your block, adjusted for size, condition and parking, show the price buyers have paid for houses like yours. A list price above them is a bet that this buyer will pay more than the last ones did.
My house has been on the market for weeks. What now?
Check the price against the sales first. The houses that cut in the last year sat a median 74 days before they sold. The ones that never cut were under contract in 9. The record on your block shows which group your price belongs to.
Read next: how fast DC row houses sell, whether the assessment is the price and Spring or Fall, the math on when to list.
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Send me every sale on my blockSources. BrightMLS closed sales, DC fee simple row houses (interior and end-of-row), the twelve months to October 24, 2026. Expired, canceled and withdrawn BrightMLS listings, matched by address to a later sale within a year on a new listing; sales under half or over one and a half times the failed price are left out as placeholder asks.