I skipped last week’s update—spring break had me out in Colorado, where it was snowing and cold while the weather back home was sunny and perfect. Fitting, really. When I left, the market felt stable, even optimistic. I came back to find it chilled, uncertain, and in a bit of a standstill.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve heard the housing market described as "shifting," "paused," or downright "frozen." Not super helpful if you are trying to make decisions related to buying and selling or just trying to understand the current dynamic. However, it's not too far off of what it actually feels like.
Let me break it down.
My advice to sellers all year has been consistent: speed to market. The first quarter of 2024 was a window of opportunity—a true seller’s market. And I told my clients clearly: don’t wait for perfect conditions. The election-year noise, macro uncertainty, and interest rate chatter weren’t going away. So why gamble?
Now, that window appears to be closing.
“How’s the market?”
It’s the question I get every day, sometimes a dozen times a week. After over 20 years in the trenches and $1B sold (including $70M last year alone), I’ve learned that real estate isn’t about watching lagging indicators—it’s about reading the room before the crowd catches on.
Housing data is delayed. Headlines lag reality by 30–60 days at least. What matters is on-the-ground insight.
So what do I tell people when they ask?
Yes, rates were high—but they’ve been high for three years. Buyers had adapted. Most still employed after the layoffs of the last two years? They felt secure. The headlines were dramatic, but the reality was nuanced.
Prices dropping? National averages were skewed by crashes in former COVID hot spots—Austin, Phoenix, Boise. Meanwhile, markets like DC, Boston, and much of the Midwest? Still doing great. We've never seen such divergence.
Until recently, the market still favored sellers—thanks to two pillars:
Low inventory
A strong economy and stock market
If one of those takes a hit, sellers will probably still be fine—there just isn’t enough supply out there. But if both go away? Then we’re in a different ballgame. At that point, your guess is as good as mine... though I’ll probably be leaning a little more conservative in how I advise folks.
Suddenly, it’s a standoff.
Sellers are priced accurately based on recent comps. But buyers? They’re more nervous than ever—about jobs, about 401(k)s, about the headlines they scroll through every morning.
This isn’t the first time I have seen this happen, in fact it's happened dozens of times over the last decade or so.
2013: Government shutdown froze buyer sentiment.
2018: Mortgage rates climbed past 5%, and homes sat for months.
2022 "Crash": Prices dipped, briefly. Then bounced.
Summer 2023: 8% mortgage rates. Buyers pulled back. Sellers waited. And those who held firm? Rewarded again.
Every time the market stuttered, those who didn’t panic—and played it smart—came out ahead. We just have not seen a protracted tough market since the great financial crash of 2008 and I'm not sure whether we will anytime soon.
We're in another standoff.
Sellers are trying to recapture the magic of Q1. Buyers, meanwhile, are pulling back—questioning the stability they felt just a few months ago. It’s whiplash. One week it’s optimism, the next it’s a headline-induced stock market dump. The only constant right now is uncertainty, and honestly, I haven’t seen it feel like this since the early days of COVID.
This pause may not last—but while we’re in it, both sides need to recalibrate. Reset expectations. Slow down, not stall out. Over the past decade, patience has consistently been rewarded. And the buyers who stepped up during soft patches? More often than not, they came out ahead.
I’m not panicking... yet 🙂. I’m just doing what I always do—keeping my sellers grounded and my buyers focused. And if someone tells you with confidence where this market is headed in the next few months? They’re probably selling snake oil.
My take? The market isn’t dead. It’s cautious. This isn’t 2008—it’s a sentiment shift. It’s not time to panic, but it is time to pay attention.