More Sellers Reduce Home Prices in May After Tax Credit Expiration

Inching up two percentage points from April, more than 43 percent of home sellers slashed their home's list price in[IMAGE]

May, according to a monthly review of home listings in 26 of the nation's largest housing markets conducted by Emeryville, California-based ""ZipRealty."":http://www.ziprealty.com/

As a result of these price reductions, the median ""for sale"" price dropped nearly $2,500 to $264,936, ZipRealty said.

""Home sellers may be lowering their list price to help stimulate interest from home shoppers now that the first-

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time and repeat homebuyer credits have expired,"" said Leslie Tyler, VP of marketing for ZipRealty.

Although the number of listings with price reductions increased, the survey showed that the average amount reduced off these properties actually decreased. According to ZipRealty, sellers reduced their list price by an average of 6.8 percent in May, falling .15 percent from April. As a result, the median reduction â€" coming in at $19,240 â€" was down 1.06 percent on a month-to-month basis.

The survey found that the highest percentage of price-reduced homes was in Jacksonville, Florida, where more than half - 51.8 percent - of all listings had at least one price reduction. Denver, though, saw the lowest percentage of price-reduced homes on the market in May, as just 30.5 percent of listings experienced price cuts.

In absolute dollars, buyers in the San Francisco Bay Area continued to enjoy the biggest home price discount, with a median price reduction of $39,000 in May. However, buyers in Houston, Dallas, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina found the smallest price reductions, with a median price cut of only $10,000 in each of the three markets.