Why Some Homes Aren't Selling in 2026

Selling a home in today’s market looks very different than it did just a few years ago. In this episode of the MTN Buff Podcast, Paden and Hunter sit down to break down what it really takes to sell a house in 2026 and why strategy matters more than ever.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Buff Show, a show brought to you by Mountain Buff Real Estate. We are dedicated to chasing down the buffs of the world and bringing their expertise right to you. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see sellers making?

SPEAKER_05 0:15

I think kind of as we've mentioned a little bit already, but I mean overpricing. Yeah. Sometimes people will think that, hey, just, you know, let's throw it out there and see what we can get. When in the long run, it ends up sitting, it's not as attractive, and then you end up losing more than what you would have started at if you would have just priced well. Yeah. You know, where I think that makes And you lose time too. Yeah. Time. You know, I think the first your first two weeks are probably the most important days kind of you have when when marketing and coming on the market because it's where the most eyes see it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

And it's it's it's the most exciting there. Like everybody's talking about it. Um, they're worried about getting outbid or outcompeted by other buyers. It doesn't have like that track record of like, oh, this house has been on the market for a long time. So we're just gonna offer a whole lot less, you know? Yeah. All right, guys. Welcome to the buff show. Today, me and Hunter got a good episode coming your way. Yes, we do. We're gonna cover uh why homes aren't selling in 2026 or why they are. I don't know. Right. We'll see. So it's been kind of crazy because um, Hunter, you just came on like when was it, end of last year? Yeah, in the fall. In the fall. And uh it's been a wild spring so far. I think like just me and you. We've had nine closings, four of those have been listings, right? And I think it's like every week we're we're releasing like a new listing. Um, we have another one going live today in North Ogden. Right. Um two more next week, one in Eden, one in Leighton. And uh I'm curious how like now that you've been doing this, what's your thoughts on the process of what it takes to get a house listed? Is it more work than you thought? Or like what's your thought?

SPEAKER_05 2:07

Yeah, I I would say it's more work than you thought, than I thought for sure. Like there's just so much that goes into it. I mean, as far as I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about the strategy later, but your photos, your marketing, your strategy, your pricing, there's just so much that goes into it that if like you're not dialed, yeah, it sits or doesn't work out quite how maybe you'd want it to.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yeah, you know. Yeah, it's like the releasing of a lit listing, it's always pretty like that the week before and the week of is pretty like labor intensive, and there's a lot going on and a lot of moving parts and things to be aware of. So we're gonna dive into all that, but that's yeah. And and I think like now having sold like at this point hundreds of homes, like you get like there there's one thing that I can say we're really good at, and that is listing houses. Like we we got that process dialed. Um, and we can really work to maximize like the sales price of the home and selling it in efficient timeline, even despite the market. Right. So if you go back though, it's kind of wild because if if you went back to like 2020 to 2022, like homes were selling in like a matter of like weeks, like it was crazy. Multiple offers like on every house, and they were just like gone overnight. It was it was wild. Yeah. And now it's like our latest stats as of January for Utah, average days on the market for a listing are 80 days. So it's jumped up quite a bit. Um, like I think way back in in the craziness of it, we were like two weeks, you know, on average.

SPEAKER_05 3:50

Yeah, my uncle was telling me when we were there at our recent event, he was like, are they still doing flat fees at all? Yeah. You know, back when I was doing that, you know, you just pay a little$250 flat MLS listing fee, yeah, and then it'd sell in two days and we'd handle, you know, they would handle everything, and uh they just give them access to the MLS, which is not how it is now.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

No, you know, no, it's it has definitely changed a lot, and uh the stakes are a lot higher. I think the stakes were a lot higher back then. Um we'll dive into that too. There's definitely a lot of ways to like go about selling your house. Um so right now, average days on market, you're 80 days, and that's from the time that you're listed on the MLS to the time that you get an offer. And then you're like on average another 30 to 45 days from there until you sell. So right now, um, if you were to list, you should be expecting to sell on average in about 110 to 125 days on average. Yeah. So that's what, four months?

SPEAKER_05 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

That's crazy. So if you were to list, let's say like we're middle of March right now, but let's say it's it's March 1st. If you were to list, you'd be March, April, May, June. End of June, you'd be selling on average.

SPEAKER_05 5:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Um, again, some some are faster, some are slower. Um I think we've been having like good success on a lot of ours if they're priced right and everything like that. So let's uh let's kind of dive into the strategy and and what um what things look like. All right, so what do you got for us first, Hunter?

SPEAKER_05 5:35

Uh let's dive into pricing. Pricing is a big, big component of this.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

So how do you like determine somebody's price on what they should expect to sell at?

SPEAKER_05 5:46

Well, one, you're running comps. Like I think sometimes uh CMA reports in comparable, you know, your comparable analysis report is sometimes underrated. Yeah. Um, because so much more goes into it than you think. Yeah. Like when we're running a report, it's not just a state average. Right. You're looking at Zillow. Yeah, you're looking at the county if you need, you're looking at the street, yeah, you know, the subdivision, whatever it is that that makes a huge difference there. Cause that really can, you know, make you sell for even more than what you listed or less. Like it it plays a big role in it.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Yeah. So we'll take like all your comps in that like close proximity to your house, trying to compare apples to apples. Um, and then we look at the solds, but we also look at like the active and under contracts. Because if there's another house in your neighborhood that's just sitting and it's pretty similar, like that gives us some good feedback. Um, or if there's one that just was listed and it went under contract and they had multiple offers, like that would be um so some good feedback as well. So I have a lot of buyers I talk with right now, and they're like, I just see price drops everywhere. And you do see that a lot right now. Um, in fact, like our going back to the stats, the average house um receives 95.2% of their original list price um when accepting offers. So they're down like 5%. And that's not including seller paid concessions as well. So I mean, realistically, people I'd say seller paid concessions are probably another one to two percent on average. So you're like six, maybe seven percent off of like a list price. Right. So there's definitely some negotiations happening. Um it's again, I think there's a sweet spot. You don't want to be overconfident in this market, um, but you also don't want to leave money on the table. So finding that sweet spot and so that you can get your whole your house sold for the most that you can, but not wasting a bunch of time on the market, which is kind of tricky right now. Right. But but we've been we've been doing it. Um, like we just sold one and it was kind of crazy because it was on the market for a few weeks. We were doing open houses, doing all the things, running ads, and then we had an offer come in, and then um we put it under contract, then we got a backup offer come in, and the backup offer was higher, but it just like uh it like solidified the whole deal and and it's interesting how that kind of falls into place sometimes. Right, right. And then we had like another one in Davis County that we listed, and that one we had it listed and sold in two weeks.

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

With a cash buyer.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

Yeah, didn't we have the uh I think we had an almost yeah, full price cash offer within what, three days?

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Yeah. Was that yeah, it was good. Yeah. They didn't get full price um by the end of it, but it was it was the we were able to sell it quickly. And you gotta you gotta take the like all that into consideration when you're oh yeah, when you're selling. Because there is a time cost of like, hey, I'm hanging on to this property. Um like sometimes it makes sense to sell it for a little bit of a discount right in the beginning and and move on and and be done instead of trying to wait. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

And I think even the motivations of the sellers, right? Like they we had our clients were looking, they were weren't they under contract for another home.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

They were under contract in another house, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

Motivations sometimes play, you know, a part in the case. For sure as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Well, and then the loan type that they were gonna get, like if they had sold their house, they would decid they saved like a lot of money by being able to have access to those funds quicker. Yes. So there was a lot of like um things that were playing into that. But it it's been like a pretty strong spring. And I will say one thing before we move on, is like we're it's March 11th right now, and like it's been pretty chilly. Um, but like looking into the forecast, it's like getting warm quick. Yes. Like we're into the 70s next week, which is crazy. Um, I think that's just gonna speed up kind of this market that we're in. Like more and more people are gonna be like, oh, it's like springtime, like time to buy a house. Coming out of the woodwork. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So um, okay, the next thing we wanted to talk about is presentation. Um, and I think we we spend a ton of time into this um when working with sellers. Again, just kind of consulting them on like what their options are as far as what it takes to sell a house. And and when it comes to selling a house, you have like a few different levers that you can pull. You can be more flexible on like price and terms and maybe not have to fix it up, the house up as much, or you need to get the house really fixed up and to like maximize the price, but you're not gonna sell it for the most you can possibly get out of it and still have it be like cluttered and things that are that need repaired and stuff like that. So it's like a fine balance between the two. Some people, and that's why there's like uh wholesalers and fix and flippers, because there's people that are just like, I don't, I just need this house sold and the condition that it's in. We can sell those houses too. Um so there's we we we've done everything from like, hey, this house is like a complete um fix and flipper. Like it just, it just needs to be completely gutted and and redone. Um I think there still are right ways to do that. Um, you don't just have to go to an investor or wholesaler. We've we've sold some of those on the MLS, really like blasted it out and got a lot of exposure for those people and brought in cash buyers that way. Um, so that that works. And then there's kind of the middle of the ground where you have some people that are super busy and can't like do all the touch-ups and cleanups and the maintenance stuff. Um, and they'll they uh they tend to concede a little bit more on price and then but but they didn't have to put in a ton of work and time into selling as well. And then we have um what I think we like the best is just like going all out into staging and getting it ready and just making it really look good and shine. Yeah. And I think we see the best um results on that. What are your thoughts? What have you seen recently on that?

SPEAKER_05 12:15

I mean, I I would agree. I think there's no kind of in the middle, it's like either fix it up, make it look really nice, or do the fix and flip type way of doing it. I mean, me and my wife put an offer on one in uh Pleasant View a little while ago, and they had 25 offers in a week. It didn't look great. It did not look great. But the price But the price was great. Yeah, you know, and I think sometimes when it is that fix and flip, kind of as we mentioned, people want to go more go the off-market listing type way, but sometimes I mean they had 25 offers and were way above asking. Yeah, that was crazy on that one. It was, but yeah, so I mean, there's that way, or again, there's things to look out for when trying to make it look nice. I mean, just a couple things, leaking faucets, right? Broken doors, paint, just little things. Sometimes we have to realize that like maybe two thousand, two to five thousand dollars could add twenty grand in value later on, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Well, that's what we did. We did a lot of work on one. Um, it was empty and it it it so we had to stage it, but um we also repainted, had painters come through and do a bunch of touch-ups and stuff like that. Um what else did we do? There were there was a number of things that that house needed, a broken window, um furnace. No appliances. Yeah, we got some appliances, there. And that one, um, that's the one that we got the multiple offers on. So I think it it like really paid off on that one. And all these have been like this spring, so it's been kind of crazy watching like the different different houses and how they perform, you know? Yes. So one note here buyers don't buy houses, they buy how the house makes them feel. And I think that's true. Like for sure. Uh in a lot of the houses, like if they're vacant, we'll put in those um wall flowers so that they're spraying out good smells and stuff like that, so it doesn't smell like a an empty, vacant house, you know.

SPEAKER_05 14:18

Definitely. I mean, my wife, same thing. If we're going and looking at a house, if there's clutter, if it smells bad, if there's dark rooms, you know, and not a lot of light coming in or windows that are dirty, it kind of you know sets it off. So depending on your goal there, those are just little simple things that can make a huge difference, right? The feeling, right? It it really does make a huge difference. What do we got next? Um, now diving into just marketing, like it's not an optional thing anymore. Yeah, it's something you have to do. As we talked about, you know, 2020, 2021, 22, can't just go stick a lull, you know, for sale sign in the yard. It's there's a lot more that goes into that now.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Yeah. Which this is awesome. We we've we've spent a lot of like time and effort and energy into and money into like making sure our our listings really s shine. So we're doing professional photos, videos. Surprisingly how many agents and people will like just snap photos with their phone and just like not do the listing justice. Um, so we have like a full team that helps us with all the photography, the videography. We have Matthew in our office, that's awesome. That helps us with all the video work, YouTube tours. Um, I mean, not only are we doing like YouTube tour walkthroughs on most of our listings, but we have 3D tours and all that. So like people can view the houses anywhere in the world at any time, which is nice. Um, I have we have some buyers that we're working with right now, and like we have to go out and do all these um virtual tours for them because they're not here locally. Yeah. And uh like having the 3D tours or the the YouTube tours on some listings would be like a huge help for them, right? Definitely. Um, so we try and make it to where there's no no reason on our end why your house isn't selling. Right.

SPEAKER_05 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

And I I can confidently say that we've got that process pretty dialed.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

Pretty dialed. I mean, I think there's not necessarily an avenue we haven't taken, you know. Yeah. Facebook ads, Instagram ads, open houses. Open houses like crazy.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah. Yeah. Why like open houses? I think that's a good topic. Um, because just recently they changed how the rules on how buyers can tour houses. So it's easy for a buyer to go through an open house. If they want like a private touring, they have to sign a contract with an agent. And I think that like scares some people. Right. So by having more open houses and stuff like that, it just gives people more free reign to be like, oh, well, I'll just I don't need to call anybody, I just show up and go through the house. We've sold quite a few houses that way, and I I think those have been doing really well. So um so the next thing we want to kind of talk about is how buyers' expectations have changed. I think we see this a lot. Um buyers are expecting for some more negotiations to happen. Um they want some seller paid concessions. Right. Um, you're just seeing it in the stats, too, right? Like um homes are selling for roughly 5% less than list, and that's not including concessions. So there definitely is some more negotiations happening. Um I would say most houses we do see some inspection um repairs requested and stuff like that. Um but again, it goes back to the work that you put in before. The more work and the more ready you can be when your house is listed, the less things that likely will get called out for inspections and like the better starting point that you'll be starting at um in the beginning.

SPEAKER_05 18:04

Definitely. I I would definitely agree with that because I think sometimes what you don't miss if you don't do the work before and seller concessions are a huge thing now. Yeah. People are asking for closing costs. That's kind of the expectation of most buyers now in some sort of negotiation. And then you get into your repairs after the inspections, and they're not just, you know, they're asking for the closing costs on what that deal was, not the repairs. So then sometimes you got to be addition to even more, right? And so that's something to kind of look out for when buying, but also when selling, yeah, and accepting some sort of offer.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Well, and that's what like on our one of our recent deals where we had a backup offer, yeah, like they asked for some stuff, and we're like, we have a backup offer that's higher. So like sellers unfortunately not willing to do anything here, right? And uh it gave us that leverage that we needed to um just keep the ball moving forward, and that helped. Yeah. So what homes would you say are selling fast?

SPEAKER_05 19:05

I'd say faster. I mean, obviously, lower priced homes sometimes are selling faster, but also just I would say even more is the right priced homes. Going back to that marketing at the very start start, your pricing strategy. Yeah. Homes that are priced well are going fast in because especially entering into the spring, yeah. Buyers are coming out and and they're looking, you know.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

So I think homes that are priced well, and and you're right, like some of the lower price homes are like the ones that are kind of the entry level, like four to five hundred thousand. Those seems to be like flying off the shelf pretty quick. Yes. Um, we've had some buyers that we've been working with, and it's like multiple offers on every one. I'm like, what the heck? This is crazy. Yeah. But it's it's the right price, and a lot of those homes were just like m done up really well, good marketing. Agents did a lot of good things right. So I think clean, move in, ready, like those houses appeal to the most wide audience, you know. Right. So good location too. I think location definitely helps as well. Location is big. Um, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see sellers making?

SPEAKER_05 20:16

I think kind of as we've mentioned a little bit already, but I mean overpricing. Yeah. Sometimes people will think that, hey, just, you know, let's throw it out there and see what we can get when in the long run it ends up sitting, it's not as attractive, and then you end up losing more than what you would have started at if you would have just priced well. Yeah. You know, where I think that makes And you lose time too.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:40

Time. You know, I think the first your first two weeks are probably the most important days kind of you have when when marketing and coming on the market because it's where the most eyes see it.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Yeah. And it's it's it's the most exciting there. Like everybody's talking about it. Um, they're worried about getting outbid or out competed by other buyers. It doesn't have like that track record of like, oh, this house has been on the market for a long time. So we're just gonna offer a whole lot less, you know? Yeah. So yeah. Um ignoring repairs, like the conditions. I think having it be in good condition if you can get it there, tidied up, clean. It's nice selling houses in the winter time because like the snow just kind of covers everything. Yeah, but that's all gone now. So now you have to start doing yard work and landscaping, making sure everything looks good, uh, making sure your photos and your marketing is spot on. Um I think showing it when like the presentation when people come in to the house to view it, making sure it's tidy and clean. Yes. Bake some cookies. I know that's hard to do ever on every showing, but like just making sure it feels good when people come through. Um and then lastly, just a plug for us like choosing an agent just based on commission. Um I think a lot of people will just compare like oh so and so will charge this we're gonna go with them i i i would not like you're you're stepping over dollars to pick up dimes in a lot of in in a lot of those scenarios where if you just pick an agent solely based on what they're charging because the agent's gonna determine how much you get out of the house so whatever their small percentage fee is that they're charging you or flat fee or whatever um that can be made up or lost super fast in negotiations, in inspections in marketing in offers. So um exposures everything and even how agents talk with other agents like and and what info they reveal like it the there's a lot of levels to this. So I'd make sure you hire somebody that knows what they're doing, they've done it because this is not just like you're selling a car or something like that. That's the biggest investment of your life. The stakes are high for sure um what should sellers like if if a seller is considering selling in 2026 what should they do?

SPEAKER_05 23:12

I mean first thing is I don't know I'd compare it to like a doctor you know you gotta assess the patient. So check out the home walk through it see what things need to be done repairs, right? Can we stage it? What photos can be taken and what are the ups and downs and how can we mitigate those downs to make it most appealing to whatever the audience is we're going after.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

How soon should they reach out to their agent?

SPEAKER_05 23:42

I'd say immediately as fast as you can because timing is of the essence and the faster you can figure out those things you know the better.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Well and if there's things that you need to do those things are going to take some time. So like if there's uh say you want to paint some stuff or fix it like like that's just gonna add more time onto your timetable. And like it is it's March like the prime selling season I'd say is like now until like June, you know? Yeah. Um summer it kind of dies off a little bit July everybody's traveling. We are just looking at our schedules and I'm like where are we going? We both had trips planned and it just July seems like a super busy it is a busy month and then it picks back up in like August, September, October and then it'll die down a little bit around Christmas and stuff. And it starts a cycle over again. So it's very very cyclical but like right now is when we're gonna see the most amount of listing start to pop up there. Um it it really gets quite busy like from here moving forward until we hit middle of summer. So I would say get with your agent, have them come do a walkthrough, get familiar in pricing, um, get an idea on what you need to do in order to get your house ready to be sold and just get that timeline. If you were to come to us and you were like most sellers I'm like hey we can we can most likely have your house like ready to list within like two weeks. Some sellers are are more ready and it can take less time than that but about two weeks is about our standard timeline from like starting it to where it's like active on the market and everything like that. So definitely just have some uh foresight there on like what your end goal is and how soon you're trying to to get it up and keep in mind with a timeline right it just takes longer to sell a house right now.

SPEAKER_05 25:35

If you want to be out by summer like now's the time to get it up you know so yeah I I would maybe add as well maybe a little plug for us also and more so for you I think there's more that goes into that time period of like when we want to go live and put it on the market than people think and of what agents can do. You know like I had no idea before coming into this job that maybe I'd be going and hauling furniture out or doing yard work or you know helping those people out and we've done that for several listings. You know it's not the goal to do that for every listing but if we need to we're there to make it happen and make it work. Yeah lots of trips of doing stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

But we're there because well I think there's sometimes people just get in a bind where they're like oh shoot we gotta you know we're doing photos and we still have all this stuff in the basement. Yeah hauling stuff out of the basement or we have a dump trailer moving trailer. So we we have um resources and contacts and people and vendors that can help you in this journey. And so like our goal really is to make it as as smooth and seamless as possible um for you guys but it is a it's a journey like it's not easy to just like pick up everything and like move it into another house. Yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of strategy especially if you're like selling one and buying one. We have a whole nother podcast on that but um overall I would say the market in 2026 is is it's a strong and steady one. Pretty flat I would say though on like pricing. Yeah um I I would just say it's strong and steady and it's it's really like it's not like a buyer's market it's not a seller's market. It's more of like just like a flat playing field I would say. A bit of both um where houses are selling buyers are still able to get pretty good deals. Rates have been pulling back a little bit so I think that will only help um but inventory's good there's just there there are more homes out there for buyers to look at so it's like the the best and prettiest and most priced the best price homes um will be the ones that are selling in this market. Yeah. So but it's been fun. It's been a fun um spring we've had a solid three months and I'm excited to see where where the rest of this year goes.

SPEAKER_05 28:10

Me too it's busy.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

It is busy and we enjoy the work. So and if you guys have any questions like don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're happy to give you like a no strings attached CMA report give you our thoughts and ideas like we we get called out to give our thoughts on um all sorts of different situations and stuff and I would recommend talking to a few different agents and see who you um connect with the best and who you feel like has your best interests at heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

So I'd agree invite them over, go and do that walkthrough. Yeah see what their thoughts are because maybe there's different opinions and thoughts that you haven't thought of that again are going to make that huge difference to save you so much more later on down the road.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Yeah it really does. So I would I just get out there and uh it's never too early to start that process if you know that you're you know itching to make a move. So yep. Well awesome well thank you guys for watching and till next time