The 2026 Distressed-Home Liquidity Index: 62 US Metros, Ranked

What this index measures (and what it does not)

This is a market-research index, not a home-value estimator. It draws on a large dataset of completed, non-listed (off-market) residential transactions across 41,452 ZIP codes, rolled up to 62 metropolitan areas. For each metro we looked at two things:

• Deal volume — how many off-market, as-is-style transactions occurred. This is a proxy for how active and liquid the distressed-sale channel is in a metro: how often homeowners sell directly rather than through a traditional listing.
• Relative discount — the median gap between a home's estimated value and its actual recorded sale price, expressed as a percentage of the estimated value. We treat this strictly as a relative ranking, not an exact margin.

Together these answer a practical homeowner question: in which markets is the direct, sell-fast channel busiest, and in which markets do off-market sales tend to close well below estimated value versus close to it? For background on why off-market and as-is sales price differently from retail listings, the Federal Reserve's research on housing liquidity and the National Association of Realtors' existing-home-sales data both document how distressed and non-listed sales behave differently from the open market.

Top 15 metros by off-market deal volume

Volume tells you where the direct-sale channel is busiest. Unsurprisingly, the largest entries are big Sun Belt metros with high housing turnover. A homeowner in these markets is more likely to find an active field of direct buyers, which generally means faster timelines and more competition for the home.

The volume figures are relative units within this dataset, useful for ranking markets against each other rather than as official transaction counts.

Top 15 metros by relative discount

Discount tells a different and more surprising story. The metros where off-market sales close furthest below estimated value are mostly smaller markets in Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Texas, not the big-name cities. A wide relative discount can reflect older housing stock, more deferred-maintenance properties, and thinner retail demand — conditions where homes more often sell as-is and below their fixed-up value.

Read this carefully: a high relative discount is not automatically good or bad for a homeowner. It signals a market where homes commonly trade below their estimated fixed-up value, often because they need work. For a seller with a property that needs repairs, these are markets where a direct as-is sale is a common and normal path. We explain the limits of this measure in the methodology section below.

Three findings worth noting

1. The hottest retail markets are the worst for a fast discounted exit — in a good way for some sellers, a bad way for others. Phoenix (relative discount near 0%) and Las Vegas (around 7%) post high deal volume but almost no gap between estimated value and sale price. In plain terms, homes in these markets tend to sell close to full value even off-market. That is good news if your home is in decent shape, because retail demand is strong. It is less helpful if you specifically need an ultra-fast as-is sale and assume you will find deeply discounted distressed activity — that activity is comparatively scarce here. Several other fast-moving markets behave the same way: Raleigh-Durham (about 3%), Nashville and Minneapolis (about 6% each), and Charlotte (about 9%).

2. The biggest discounts hide in small metros, not big cities. Not one of the top 15 discount markets is a major metro. Albany and Dublin, Georgia; Joplin, Missouri; Muncie, Indiana; and the Mississippi Delta lead instead. These are smaller markets with older housing and thinner buyer pools, where homes more frequently sell as-is and below fixed-up value. For homeowners in these areas, selling directly is often the practical norm rather than the exception.

3. A handful of metros offer both high volume and a wide discount. Most markets are either busy or deeply discounted, but a few are both. Houston (high volume, roughly 34% relative discount), Atlanta (about 31%), and Birmingham (about 36%) combine an active direct-sale channel with a meaningful value-to-sale gap. These are the markets where the as-is selling option is both widely available and reflects real condition-driven pricing.

The full picture: volume and discount are different questions

The two rankings answer two separate questions, and they rarely point to the same place. Volume answers "how busy is the direct-sale channel here?" Discount answers "how far below estimated value do off-market homes tend to trade here?" A homeowner deciding how to sell should hold both in mind:

• High volume, low discount (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham): strong retail demand, homes sell near value. A traditional listing may net you the most if your home is financeable and you are not in a hurry.
• High volume, meaningful discount (Houston, Atlanta, Birmingham, San Antonio): an active direct-buyer field and a real value-to-sale gap. Both paths are viable; compare net proceeds.
• Lower volume, wide discount (Albany GA, Dublin GA, Joplin MO, Muncie IN): smaller markets where as-is sales are common and condition drives pricing heavily.

No single ranking should drive a decision about your specific home. Local condition, repairs needed, and your own timeline matter more than any metro average. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and your state real-estate commission are useful neutral starting points for understanding local selling norms.

Methodology, in full

We publish the method openly so the numbers can be checked and challenged.

Source data. A national export of completed off-market (non-listed) residential transactions covering 41,452 ZIP codes across all states, aggregated up to 62 metropolitan areas. We restricted the analysis to homes with a median value in the $150,000-$500,000 range to keep markets comparable and to exclude extreme high- and low-value outliers.

Volume. The sum of qualifying off-market transactions in a metro's ZIP codes. We report it as a relative figure for ranking markets against each other, not as an official or exhaustive transaction count.

Relative discount — and its single most important caveat. We computed, for each ZIP, the median of (estimated value − sale price) / estimated value, then took a deal-weighted median across each metro. We trimmed values outside a roughly −20% to 85% band to remove data errors and non-arm's-length transfers.

This discount figure is a price-discount proxy, not a true investment margin. It is the gap between an automated estimated value and the actual recorded sale price. It does not measure repair costs, after-repair value, holding costs, or anything about what a home is "really" worth fixed up. A high reading often simply means homes in that market need work and trade accordingly. Because automated value estimates carry their own error, only the relative ranking across metros is reliable here — the absolute percentages should not be read as precise.

What we deliberately excluded. Markets in states with restrictive or licensing-heavy rules around direct/assignment home buying were left out of this index to keep the comparison clean, including Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Their absence is a methodology choice, not a judgment about those markets.

Limitations we want stated plainly. Off-market transaction data reflects where direct buying happens, not consumer demand or list-price behavior. Metro center points are approximate. Automated value estimates are imperfect. And a metro average says nothing about an individual home. We would rather a sharp reader trust the relative ranking than over-read any single number.