Selling Your House in a Slowing Housing Market

If you're thinking about selling your home in the next few months, you probably need to adjust your expectations. That's not because the housing market is crashing, plenty of homes are still selling, but the market heading into fall and winter is different from the one a few months ago. Rates have moved higher, homes are sitting longer, and price reductions are common. Sellers who understand the market they're actually selling into are going to be fine. It's the sellers still expecting the market from a few years ago who are going to have a problem. (Figures here reflect the market as of this video, 9/9/2026, and change over time; confirm current numbers with a professional.)

Why Fall and Winter Slow Down for Sellers

We're coming out of the summer selling season into a historically slower stretch. Kids are back in school, vacations are over, and buyer activity naturally drops heading into October, November, and December compared to spring. People do buy and sell homes every month of the year, so the market doesn't stop, but the buyer pool is smaller in the back half of the year, and the holidays add another layer, since buying a house gets pushed down the priority list when people are traveling and busy with family. If you're listing now, you're generally competing for fewer buyers than someone who listed in the spring, and that's normal, not a sign something's wrong with your home. It's simply a smaller pool to work with, which changes how quickly things move without meaning the market has fallen apart.

Rising Rates Shrink Your Buyer Pool

On top of the seasonal slowdown, mortgage rates are back at the highest level since June of 2025. Most buyers don't track rates day to day, but they feel it the moment they get preapproved and see their payment. If a buyer is already near the top of what they can afford and rates move up, their payment goes up too, and they either no longer qualify for your house or the payment becomes uncomfortable, pushing them into a lower price range. It doesn't matter what you paid for the house or how much you need to walk away with; buyers are looking at what it costs them every month, and when rates rise, affordability gets worse. It's a simple mechanism, but it's easy for sellers to overlook, since your home's value in your own head has nothing to do with what a buyer can actually qualify to pay this month. Combine that with a smaller seasonal buyer pool and it's easy to see how expectations can get out of line with the market.

Days on Market Are Longer, and That's the New Normal

Homes are taking longer to sell than the market a few years ago, when a house could go on the market Thursday, get 40 showings over the weekend, and generate a dozen offers by Monday. I lived through that market and sold a lot of houses in it, but it was never the normal market, and it isn't the benchmark to measure against today. If your home has been listed two weeks without an offer, that doesn't automatically mean something's wrong; it depends on what similar homes in your specific market are actually taking to sell, whether that's 30, 45, or 90 days. The mistake I see sellers make is reaching for excuses, buyers are waiting for rates to drop, school just started, the house down the street sold for more, instead of listening to what the market is actually telling them when showings happen but no offers come in. Eventually, if buyer after buyer walks through and nobody writes an offer, that pattern is the market speaking, whether or not the excuses happen to be partly true.

Price Reductions Are Common, Not a Failure

We're seeing a lot of price reductions right now, in my own market roughly 60% of homes have had some kind of reduction, and nationwide the figure is closer to 42%. That doesn't mean prices dropped 10 or 15%, sometimes it's a small adjustment, but it reflects how often a home sits, goes stagnant, and needs renewed activity. I don't view a price reduction as a failure, though I'd rather price a home correctly from day one, since the first couple of weeks on the market bring the most attention: that's when the listing is new, when waiting buyers get notified, and when agents send it to their clients. Starting high with a plan to come down later wastes that window. While the home sits overpriced, buyers start wondering what's wrong with it, days on market pile up, and eventually you're negotiating from a position of catching up to the right price instead of strength from the start. Being realistic doesn't mean pricing below market, it means pricing to what buyers are actually paying now, not to what a neighbor got months ago in a different market.

Condos Face an Extra Layer: Financing the Project Itself

If you're selling a condo, the condo project itself has to qualify for financing too, on top of the buyer. Lenders are looking closely at the building's insurance, HOA financials, deferred maintenance, and other project-level requirements. A perfectly qualified buyer can write an offer on your condo and still run into financing problems because of the building, not the buyer. Add in rising HOA dues, rising insurance costs, and special assessments in some communities, and two $700,000 properties, a single-family home with no HOA and a condo with a $600 monthly HOA, aren't really the same $700,000 property once a buyer is already stretching their budget. Condos are still selling and most HOAs don't have problems, but if you're selling one, get the HOA documents, understand the insurance situation, and know about any assessments before listing, rather than finding out three weeks into escrow when a lender flags an issue and the deal has to start over.

Pricing and Positioning for the Market You're Actually In

All of this comes back to expectations. Your home might take longer to sell right now, and that's fine as long as you understand the environment you're selling into. You might not get multiple offers, and the offer you do get might come in below asking, none of which obligates you to accept it, but it's worth having a real conversation about rather than dismissing it. Buyers may ask for repairs, a credit, or help with closing costs, and none of that is automatic either. Buyers simply have more choices in this kind of market than they did when properties had dozens of people competing over them, and more choices for buyers means less leverage for sellers.

The sellers I worry about are the ones who say they're not in a hurry, they know what their house is worth, and if somebody wants it, they'll pay their price. Maybe someone will. But if you actually need to sell, because you're buying another house, relocating for work, going through a divorce, or retiring, waiting on a buyer who may never show up isn't a strategy.

If you genuinely need to sell, whether you're buying another house, relocating, or handling a life change, price and position the home for the market you're actually in, not the one you wish you were in. That doesn't mean you can't get a great price. Homes that are priced correctly and show well are still selling, some quickly and with multiple offers. But buyers today have more information than ever: they can see your days on market, your price reductions, and everything else for sale or recently sold, and they'll compare your home against all of it.

Be realistic about price, make the home show as well as it can, understand what you're competing against, and give the process some time. Expecting a sale in three days for well over asking with no contingencies is setting yourself up for disappointment, but a home priced and presented for the market you're actually in can still sell well. The market isn't necessarily bad for sellers right now, it's simply less forgiving of homes that are priced or presented for a market that's already moved on.