Published October 8, 2026 in Market Update

71.3% of Columbia County Sellers Paid the Buyer at Closing

By Jasmin Bradley

Real estate, Columbia County Market Update

I pulled every lived-in home that sold in Columbia County from September 2025 through October 7, 2026. That is 2,273 sales. The one thing I kept coming back to: how many sellers handed money back to the buyer at the closing table, and whether the price range changed anything. It does. A lot.

Most Columbia County sellers paid the buyer something, and the higher the price, the more likely it happened.

Of the 2,273 lived-in homes that sold, 71.3% of sellers paid money back to the buyer at closing. The typical amount was $8,000. That is not a small number of sellers making a one-time concession. That is the normal deal in Columbia County right now.

One home on Gibbs Road shows exactly how this works. It sold at or over its asking price, which sounds like a win. Then the seller paid $20,000 back at closing. Selling at asking and still writing a check at the end is the part most sellers do not plan for.

Thirty-three homes sold at or over asking and still paid back $20,000 or more. So if your agent tells you the sale price looks great, ask about the closing costs the seller covered. Those two numbers together are the real result.

Now look at what price range you are in, because the experience is very different depending on where you start.

Under $250K was the steadiest price range. Only 13.7% of sellers gave up without a sale. The typical home sold in 20 days and got 100% of its last asking price. That does not mean every seller walked away clean, but this range moved.

$250K to $350K is the biggest slice of the market, with 864 homes sold. It held up almost as well: 13.9% gave up, and the typical home got 100% of its last asking price. This range had the highest share of homes that sold at or over asking, at 55.3%.

$350K to $400K is where the market starts to shift. The give-up rate climbs to 17.8%, and the typical home took 45 days to sell instead of 27. Still manageable, but sellers in this range needed more patience.

$400K to $500K was the hardest range. One in five sellers, 20.2%, came off the market with no sale. The typical home took 49 days. This range had the lowest share of homes sold at or over asking of any range in the market.

$500K and up had a give-up rate of 17.3%, actually a little lower than the $400K to $500K range. But homes here took a median 53 days, and the typical seller got back only 96.6% of what they first asked. That gap between first price and final price is the biggest of any range.

The surprise is how little the sale price itself tells you about how hard a range was to sell.

Look at the share of the first asking price that sellers got. Under $250K: 97.8%. $400K to $500K: 97.7%. Almost identical. But the give-up rate in the higher range is nearly half again as high. The sellers who did close in the higher range got a similar share of their first price. The ones who could not close just never show up in that number.

The homes that gave up started higher than the homes that sold. The typical first asking price of a home that gave up was $366,450. The typical first asking price of a home that sold was $335,000. That $31,450 gap is not random. It is the cost of pricing past what buyers would pay.

Right now, 800 homes are for sale in Columbia County. More than half of them, 52.9%, have already dropped their price. The typical cut is $14,950. That is not a small adjustment. That is a seller who started in the wrong place and is working their way back toward where buyers are.

New builds did this even more. Builders paid money back on 84.9% of new homes sold, compared to 67.8% of older homes. The typical amount builders paid back was $8,871. Builders are motivated to close, and they have room to move. That is the competition a resale seller is up against.

What this means if you are selling or buying in Columbia County right now.

If you are selling, the one thing this data says clearly is that your first price matters more than your final price. The homes that gave up started $31,450 higher than the homes that sold. They did not fail at the end. They started in the wrong place. If you are priced above $400K, plan for 49 or more days and budget for what you will likely hand back at closing. If you price it right from day one, you have a real shot at 100% of your last asking price, and fewer days sitting.

If you are buying, the market is giving you more room than it did a year ago. The Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed rate at 7.28% as of October 1, 2026, up from 6.34% a year earlier. That rate pressure is part of why more than half the homes for sale right now have already cut their price. Nationally, the NAR says supply is at its highest level in over ten years, and buyers have better odds of negotiating. In Columbia County, that plays out in the closing credits sellers are paying. Ask about them on every offer.