BAM Key Details:
- Audience Town’s The State of Home Builder Marketing 2026 analyzed more than 201,000 closed home sales across 25 U.S. markets to examine what drives builder discounts.
- New homes sold at or above asking price 42% of the time in the Midwest, compared with just 6% in Texas growth suburbs.
- National builders’ share of new home sales was the strongest predictor of discounting, with greater builder concentration linked to more price cuts.
New homes in the Midwest sold at or above their asking price 42% of the time in the 12 months ending in August 2026. In Texas growth suburbs, the figure was 6%.
The numbers come from Audience Town’s The State of Home Builder Marketing 2026 report, which tracked more than 201,000 closed home sales across 25 U.S. markets. If you’ve got buyers looking at new construction, the report gives a clearer picture of where builders are more willing to come down on price.
Audience Town founder and CEO Ed Carey opened the report with a letter summing up what the company found when it looked at slow sales across these markets.
“It’s undeniably the market, and that market is multi-faceted. Discounting runs from 47% to 92% depending on where you build. But marketing’s job is to win, no matter the market.”
Carey’s 47% to 92% range covers all housing stock in those markets, including new construction and resale homes listed on the MLS.
The report’s new construction numbers follow a similar pattern from one market to the next. Here’s where builders held their prices over the past year and what the report says is driving the discounts.
Where New Homes Hold Their Asking Price by Region
Audience Town broke out new home sales by region to show the share that sold at or above the asking price.
Here’s how each region compared:
- Midwest: 42%
- West: 35%
- Southeast: 35%
- Florida: 24%
- Texas metros: 18%
- Texas growth suburbs: 6%
Midwest builders held price better than builders in any other region. The Midwest has the lowest concentration of national builders in the study, and the rest of the data helps explain why that detail counts for so much.
One note on the data. These figures cover new homes listed on the MLS. Sales that builders handle in-house without the MLS aren’t all captured.
National Builder Share Predicts Where Builders Discount Most
Of everything Audience Town measured, the share of new home sales going to national builders was the strongest predictor of discounting. The pattern held across nine states.
The clearest example comes from two fast-growing suburbs north of Denver.
According to the report, Brighton and Erie share the same metro and rate environment. They draw from the same buyer pool and follow the same regulations. The biggest difference between them is who’s building.
Here’s how the two suburbs compared on new home sales:
- Share of new homes sold by national builders: 50% in Brighton and 75% in Erie
- Share of new homes sold at or above asking: 32% in Brighton and 21% in Erie
Erie’s rate of holding price was a third lower than Brighton’s, and the report says Erie builders gave deep discounts twice as often. Its 25-market table, which covers all homes sold including resale, shows how the two suburbs compared on discounts overall:
- Brighton: 63% sold below asking, with a median discount of 1.7%
- Erie: 71% sold below asking, with a median discount of 2.5%
Keep in mind, Erie, Colorado is not a bargain market. Its median sale price of $725,000 is the highest of any suburb in the study.
The same pattern appears across nine growth suburbs in nine states. Here’s each suburb’s national builder share, followed by the share of homes that sold at or above asking:
- Spring Hill, TN: 40% and 49%
- Brighton, CO: 50% and 32%
- Kannapolis, NC: 58% and 26%
- Westfield, IN: 61% and 40%
- Fort Mill, SC: 69% and 23%
- Nocatee, FL: 73% and 30%
- Erie, CO: 75% and 21%
- Braselton, GA: 77% and 22%
- St. Cloud, FL: 84% and 24%
Kansas City sits at the far end of the range. National builders account for 13% of its market, and it has the highest rate of holding price in the country, at 54%.
According to Audience Town, national builders:
- Carry finished spec inventory, meaning homes built before a buyer signs a contract
- Work against monthly closing targets
- Have bigger rate buydown budgets than regional builders can match (a rate buydown is money the builder puts toward lowering the buyer’s mortgage rate)
When several national builders sell in the same area, the report says competition over incentives ends up setting the price buyers expect.
Once national builders hold around 60% or more of new home sales in a submarket, Audience Town tells builders to plan for that competition.
There’s a ceiling on what incentives can do for buyers who already have a low mortgage rate. In the report’s seven-market buyer sample, half of recent sellers gave up a rate between 2% and 4% to make their move.
According to Audience Town’s report, no builder incentive reaches that low.
Texas Growth Suburbs Discount Deeper Than Anywhere Else
Texas stands apart, even among suburbs where national builders dominate. Audience Town compared growth suburbs where national builders hold 60% or more of sales, and Texas suburbs discounted more than suburbs in other states:
- Homes sold at or above asking: 27% outside Texas and 6% in Texas
- Homes discounted 5% or more: 41% outside Texas and 80% in Texas
Braselton, Georgia, has a higher national builder share than McKinney, Texas, and holds price at four times McKinney’s rate.
As to why, Audience Town’s report suggests land availability and the volume of simultaneous development in the North Dallas and West Houston corridors are the most likely culprits. The report says its data can measure the effect but can’t isolate the cause.
The report’s 25-market table covers all homes sold, resale included. It shows how deep discounts ran in three Texas growth suburbs:
- Celina: 92% sold below asking, with a median discount of 8.8% and a median of 105 days to sell
- Fulshear: 86% sold below asking, with a median discount of 7.6% and a median of 83 days to sell
- McKinney: 83% sold below asking, with a median discount of 4.8% and a median of 75 days to sell
Growth Suburbs Tend to Track Their Parent Metro
Audience Town compared 12 growth suburbs with the metros around them. Suburbs outside Texas performed within an average of 3 points of their metro. Texas suburbs ran 14 points worse.
Here’s how eight of those suburbs compared with their metros. A higher number means the suburb performed worse than its metro.
- Brighton vs. Denver: −3
- Spring Hill vs. Nashville: −2
- Westfield vs. Indianapolis: +2
- Fort Mill vs. Charlotte: +4
- Braselton vs. Atlanta: +9
- Fulshear vs. Houston: +10
- McKinney vs. Dallas/Fort Worth: +12
- Celina vs. Dallas/Fort Worth: +20
Location has more to do with it than the character of the town.
- Fort Mill, South Carolina, has a historic downtown and a $525,000 median price.
- Kannapolis, North Carolina, is a former mill town with a $340,000 median.
Both finished within a few points of Charlotte.
Reading Builder Discount Data in Your Own Market
The report’s main advice to builders is to measure themselves against their own market. Its example: a 71% discount rate would signal distress in Kansas City and normal conditions in Jacksonville.
Real estate pros can use the same approach when they size up new construction in their area. The report’s 25-market table breaks out four numbers for each market:
- The share of homes sold below asking
- The median discount
- Median days to sell
- The share of new home sales going to national builders
Carey explained in his letter why the report focuses on local data.
“We built this report because our customers kept asking a version of the same question: are sales slow because of marketing, or the market? That question deserves an answer from data, not a national benchmark that describes nobody’s neighborhood.”
If your clients are asking questions about builder incentives, start by looking at who’s building down the street.
