Published October 12, 2026 in Market Update

Almost Every Riverside Seller Paid the Buyer Back This Week

By Adam Schwarz | Exp Realty

Real estate, Riverside Weekly Market 10 04 to 10 10 CLEAN

Here is the matchup I want to walk you through this week: homes with a pool against homes without one. Both groups sold. Both groups had sellers pay money back to buyers at closing. But the numbers split in ways that matter if you are pricing a home right now. I pulled every listing in Riverside that closed the week of October 4 to 10, 2026, 32 sales in all.

Pool homes sold for $143,000 more, but sellers gave back a bigger share of their asking price

The typical pool home in Riverside closed at $750,000 this week. The typical home without a pool closed at $607,000. That is a $143,000 gap. If you own a pool home, that spread feels good. But here is the part that catches sellers off guard.

Pool-home sellers got 96.8% of what they first asked. No-pool sellers actually did a little better on that measure, at 97.5%. So the pool added value in raw dollars, but sellers with pools left a slightly larger gap between their opening number and what they actually got. The difference is small, but it shows that pricing a pool home is not as simple as adding a fixed dollar amount and calling it done.

Both groups took 23 days to find a buyer. Speed was a draw. What was not a draw: the whole market closed at 100% of the last asking price for both groups. That means sellers who dropped their price before closing still got their final number. The gap came from the original price, not the final one.

The biggest gap between pool and no-pool homes was not the price. It was how many sellers gave up.

Only 2 pool-home sellers came off the market with no sale. Among no-pool sellers, 18 gave up. That is a striking difference for one week.

A pool did not just add price. It added staying power. Sellers without pools were far more likely to pull their home before it ever closed. And across the whole market this week, the typical first asking price of homes that gave up was $679,900, against $656,500 for homes that sold. Sellers who gave up started higher. That pattern held.

Right now there are 37 homes for sale in Riverside, and only 2.7% of them have already dropped their price. So most sellers are still holding their opening number. The ones who do not price carefully are the ones most likely to end up in the gave-up column.

The surprise is not that pool homes sold for more. Most people expect that. The surprise is the gave-up gap: 18 no-pool sellers walked away with nothing, while pool-home sellers almost all made it to closing. That is the number worth sitting with if you are deciding how to price.

No group won everything, and the concessions this week were real across the board

Here is what neither group escaped: 31 of 32 sellers paid money back to the buyer at closing. That is 96.9% of all sellers. The typical amount was $18,000. Eight homes sold at or over asking price and still paid back $20,000 or more. So even sellers who got their number on paper often gave something back in another form.

The home on Adriana Avenue is a clean example. It sold at $600,000, at or over asking, and the seller still paid $33,050 back. The final price looked strong. The net was different. That is the week's real story, and it applied to pool homes and no-pool homes alike.

No-pool sellers did edge out pool sellers on one measure: they got 97.5% of their first asking price versus 96.8% for pool sellers. That is the one place no-pool homes won. It is a narrow win, and it came with a much higher rate of giving up entirely.

What sellers and buyers should each take from this week

If you are selling, the concession is the story right now, not the sale price. Getting to closing at or over your last asking price is very doable: the whole market closed at 100% of the final list price this week. But 96.9% of sellers still paid money back. That means your net is not your list price. Price carefully from the start, because the typical home that gave up first asked $23,400 more than the typical home that sold. At 3.5 months of supply, you have a seller's market on paper. Use it by pricing right, not by pricing high.

If you are buying, the concession trend is working in your favor, but rates are working against you. Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey put the 30-year fixed at 7.40% as of October 8, 2026, up from 7.28% the week before and well above 6.30% a year ago. The 22 buyers who used loans this week still closed at a middle price of $628,500 and got to 100% of the seller's last asking price. Cash buyers moved faster, with a typical 14 days on market against 19 for loan buyers. If you are financing, build the rate into your number before you write an offer, not after.