S2 E34 Why Does Selling Feel So Hard Right Now? | Market Shifts, Military Cycles & What Normal Actually Looks Like

If your house has been sitting on the market longer than you expected, this episode is for you. 

Brittney responds to a real client question: two properties in two states, two different realtors, same result. No offers. Is this normal? The answer is yes, and the full explanation is something every seller needs to hear right now.

Brittney walks through the history of what a normalized market actually looks like, why the COVID-era frenzy warped everyone's expectations, and how supply, demand, interest rates, and military PCS cycle disruptions have all collided to slow down home sales in 2025 and into 2026. She breaks down why buyers who purchased in 2020 and 2021 now find themselves in a tough spot as sellers, and why new construction is adding pressure that resale listings cannot always compete with.

This episode also delivers real hope. Brittney shares exactly why mid-May through the end of June is the sweet spot for military market listings, what sellers can do right now to refresh their listing and stay competitive, and why the right buyer is still coming. If you have been frustrated, confused, or losing patience, this conversation will bring clarity and calm.

Key Takeaways

• A 180-day average market time was completely normal before 2020. We are returning to that reality.
• COVID-era rates and prices created a seller's market that cannot and will not last forever.
• Buyers who purchased in 2023 or 2024 at high prices with higher rates have little equity, making it hard to negotiate competitively as sellers.
• New construction in military markets is pricing at or below resale and offering rate buydowns, which directly competes with existing listings.
• PCS cycle disruptions through late 2024 and early 2025 stalled the traditional fall rush that sellers depend on.
• The listing sweet spot in military markets is April 15 through May 15, with strong momentum carrying through June.
• Refreshing your listing with new spring photos, a broker open, or updated terms can reignite buyer interest.
• The right buyer is coming. Patience and show-readiness are the two most important tools a seller has right now.

🎧If this episode helped you understand what is happening in the market, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who is sitting on a listing right now and wondering what to do. Your review helps this podcast reach more military families navigating these exact challenges.

Closing Chapters Podcast: Where Every Mission Has A Story

Thanks for listening. We talk all things military real estate, my transactions, the mistakes, the wins, and simple plays you can use right now.

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Disclaimer: This podcast education only & is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Talk with your own pros about your situation. Opinions are my own.

© 2025 Brittney Frye. All rights reserved. Realtor, license # 352197 in NC. Brokerage: REAL Broker l Military Division

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey there friend, welcome back to the closing chapters podcast where every mission has a story. That's what it was normal, like when I started real estate. That's what we expected. Now, when things started speeding up, sometimes that would ebb and flow a little bit, but on average that was what we were working with, and we always got typically a year-long listing agreement. And that was totally okay and normal. Now, since COVID, where we had the craze and everybody was having to purchase without even being able to see the house and go over list price, and everything seemed like it was so competitive, and you didn't have time to even think, nonetheless, act, it's very hard to understand. Like, what why did we pump the brakes? Like, why aren't houses selling all of a sudden? And it is simply because we are getting back to a position where there is plenty of inventory on the ground and not as many buyers. Hello, hello, my friends. So I have a client that asked me a pretty good question recently, and I want to talk about it. So I got a text message that said, okay, I've got my house listed in Florida and here in North Carolina. I know it's not the realtors, but is this normal? Why haven't my houses sold yet? And she was literally asking about both properties. Two different states, two different properties, two different realtors, same result. The houses are just chilling. The question was: is this normal? Is it normal for me to put a house on the market in the fall and still be getting into spring and it not to have sold? What are your thoughts? I would love to know before I dive in. If you have thoughts, put them in the comments. But what I went back to was one, supply and demand, and two, past history. So it it is very hard for folks that have bought in the past five years to really have a gauge of what used to be or like a normalized market that we or what we consider a normalized market from prior 2020. And so I explained to my clients if you would have worked with me from 16 to 19, 2016 to 2019, and we would have listed your house, I would have automatically requested a year-long listing agreement. And I would have told you that we would have had an average of about 180 days on market. That's what it was normal. Like when I started real estate, that's what we expected. Now, when things started speeding up, sometimes that would ebb and flow a little bit, but on average, that was what we were working with. And we always got typically a year-long listing agreement. And that was totally okay and normal. Now, since COVID, where we had the craze and everybody was having to purchase without even being able to see the house and go over list price, and everything seemed like it was so competitive, and you didn't have time to even think, nonetheless, act. It's very hard to understand. Like, what why did we pump the brakes? Like, why aren't houses selling all of a sudden? And it is simply because we are getting back to a position where there is plenty of inventory on the ground and not as many buyers. And that's for several factors, right? One, sure, the rates aren't as low. Are the rates below the national averages? Absolutely. So are they reasonable? Are they normal? Yeah, they are. Is that a hard pill to swallow whenever you had a 2.75 five years ago? Yes, yeah, it is. It's hard. It's tough. And that's coming from someone that's done that. I understand that reality. However, it doesn't mean that we don't move forward. But if you do not have a reason to move, then it makes it a little bit harder to just want to up and go just to go. And also, of course, if there's like a good scenario, there's more people that are going to take advantage of that, right? And it was just a snowball effect, right? When those rates artificially got decreased so far, then all of a sudden everybody was a seller, everybody was game, and everybody wanted to purchase because they could get the lowest rate of their life. And that just bumped up our demand, which then increased our prices drastically. So all of a sudden, all of these sellers that were selling and making 100 grand in cash had no problem going and purchasing another house. But that phase is gone. Most of those people, let's say that this is military, right? Let's say they they sold in 2020 or 2021 and bought in 2020, 2021. All right. If they're an officer, that means they were there for maybe two to three years. If they're enlisted, let's say if they're on a normal rotation, four years. Okay. So that would have put them at that 23 to 25 marker is what we're looking at, where they have yet again sold and bought or held and rented and then bought another property. So good chances are they have bought another property in that 23 to 25 price or year range. So now anybody that bought in that 23 to 25, it was still paying the higher price points, but now we have a higher rate added to it. So now my folks that bought in 23-ish, that are transitioning out, 23, 24, that need to sell cannot sell, right? It's putting them in a sticky situation. So one, there's a lot more properties on the market and just not as many buyers, not as much hubbub and willingness to purchase. And two, it's very hard to price competitively and say, hey, I'll just give away the house when you don't have equity in it. When we paid 100 grand down on a house before and no big deal, cool. But if we rented that house out and then we purchase another house just like a normal VA, no money down and rolling in that funding fee into our mortgage, in three years, we don't have diddly squat. We have no equity in that house, hardly at all. So this is the position people are getting into. They cannot be competitive sellers where they can say, sure, I can give away X, Y, and Z. Yes, I can contribute X, Y, and Z, because they purchased high with a higher rate without putting this huge chunk of money down like they had in the past. So that is like such a hard crutch right now. Like we all have to make ends meet and it all has to work for everyone around. Now I can tell you in my specific area that it is very hard, depending on the scenario, to justify someone purchasing over renting, right? Because the rental rates are lower than the mortgage rates. So is it a future investment? Absolutely. I think if you're gonna be here forever and a day, then get it. And even if you wanted to hold it as an investment, get it, purchase. Is there's never a bad time to purchase, right? Real estate is cyclical, rates are gonna come up, they're gonna go down. So purchase when it's right for you, and then we can adjust the rest as time progresses and we see opportunity, right? But if I have someone coming in and saying, hey, I've got this tight budget, this is all that I can spend, chances are the per the house I could purchase is far less superior than a house that they could rent. And that's a shame, honestly, it really is. So that in an essence is why we are having a hard time selling a lot of these resale properties, because that same house could be rented for far less than what the actual mortgage is going to be. And that's a hard pillow to swallow. Now, the other piece that makes resales so hard right now, we've talked about this already, but just a reminder, is that in our particular area, there is so much new construction, which is amazing, right? It's great opportunities, great properties, great neighborhoods. It's not like that's a bad thing. However, they are priced the same, if not lower, than some of these resales, and then, and that's what catches us. And then if they have an internal mortgage lender, they're giving you a 4.99 or below interest rate. And then they're willing to give you $10,000 towards concessions, and then they're willing to throw in the blinds and the fridge and the whatever. And that combined makes it super hard to be competitive. Now, I will even say on the flip side, sometimes I don't think that realtors are actually looking through information and advocating appropriately for their client. Because I have a listing right now where we literally have put in there, hey, if you give us a full price offer, we will do this and this. And part of that is we will buy down your rate and then what is left over, like you get to pick and choose, right? So if the rate's important to you, we will buy down your rate if you get approved through our preferred lender and let him do the one. Cool. And then we'll buy it down with X amount of a cushion. So if that price point is 7,500, however far 7,500 gets you, if you don't want to use all of that towards the rate buy down, then fine, a lot X amount to the rate buy down, 5,000 to the rate buy down, 2,500 to your closing cost. So we are, and it's the amounts that they're giving are higher than that at FII. I'm just trying to be reasonable and talk easily. But, anyways, even in that scenario, we should be playing ball with the new construction. That's that was the whole point was like, okay, how can we be strategic and match what new construction is doing? And the biggest thing is the rate. So we talked to our lender and said, Hey, will you help us with this? And that's fantastic if anyone actually pays attention to it and sees the opportunity. So if hardware, a lot of times people are just simply told, if you go new construction, you'll get all of these extras. And they're not actually paying attention to the terms that are being offered on these resale properties. And one of the things is we also forget that cool, it's brand new, cool, we got a lower rate. But the amount of cash out of pocket is still a lot when you buy a new construction property because a lot of times it's not going to include a fridge. So you're paying what $3,000 for a nice French door fridge, which everybody tends to like. Okay, you're not gonna have blinds more than likely for the most part. So are you paying what $1,500 at least for blinds? All right, so we're at $4,500 there. Oh, by the way, you have a dog and you have children and you want a fence? Okay, let's put another five to $7,500 in there for that. So what we were at $4,500 plus five, that's nine, $9,500 up to $13,000 basically. And that's just for three necessities. Nonetheless, if you needed anything else, furniture or you wanted to do upgrades or who knows, gutters, all kinds of things, right? So it's not always like a fair trade when you have a resale property. A lot of times they have already done these extras and put the money into the property, and that is literally just getting passed along to you. So that's something to think about, my friends. But all in all, if you want to know, is it normal? Is it normal that a property has been put on the market in the fall and it is still on the market today, in the beginning of May? Yes, it is absolutely normal in a normal market for there to be time. Because let's talk about this too for the cycle, right? So we put it in the fall. Also, I will say too, this wonky PCS cycle that we've had going on because of all the changes with the movers and stopping orders, and then all of a sudden I'm not moving, then I am moving, and then there's so much uncertainty with a lot of that in the past year that has not helped keep our true PCS cycles that we're used to very consistent. So we did not have this huge fall rush like we normally do, because that was when everybody was in this pickle, like at the end of the summer last year and into the fall, of I can't get movers or I don't know, they haven't given me my official orders yet. They're saying that they may not cut them, that I might have to wait. There's a lot of volatility there. And I saw that with several of my clients, even sellers, where it was like, I need to sell, like, I need to have it ready to go, but I don't have orders yet. And I don't know if they're gonna give them to me or if I'm gonna be delayed. Like, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. And we figured it out. I had one that was a buyer coming in, same deal, thought that they were not coming anymore on time. It was gonna be pushed, and then all of a sudden it was like, go, all right, we're good. I got the orders, let's go. So there's been some wonkiness with that. So our true like system has not really been like our true cadence hasn't been there. So we put it on in the fall, okay, before all the holidays. And the only time people are buying during the holidays is if they have to buy during the holidays, right? Because otherwise, that is such a chaotic time. We are traveling with family, we have kids in and out of school, we have all of these other extra activities to be at. That is not the time that we want to go look at houses, put in an offer, and then think about having to pack up our house, move it, and then unpack. And oh, by the way, not be able to be settled for the holidays. So typically that's relatively speaking a pretty big wash. If you are past the end of October, the people that are moving, like once again, in November and December absolutely have to. Okay. So that kind of marks out the fall. So, really, if you think about it, then that meant like we were on the market for 30, 30, 45 days before we hit that mark. Because we, I think we listed in September. Let's go to the beginning of the year. It is traditionally relatively slow January through March. We've actually had some activity this year through those time frames, which has been interesting, but it has not been a tried and true big push. And once again, I'm talking very specifically for military markets. How often have you seen anybody moving between January and March in the military world? And that's our ideal client, right? So, anyhow, there's not been a lot of that. So we go, okay, come March, maybe we're gonna start seeing like that early spring. I had a little bit of it like reversed where January to March, we did see a little bit of activity. I had a couple of buyers, one was a build job, so like we had started like in August and it was finishing up in the beginning of the year, and a couple other that just trickled in. It wasn't like the normal rush. And then now uh it's sit and duck season, right? From the end of March until now, I haven't had a whole lot going on. But let me tell you, I have a lot going on come mid-May. I have two listings going live. I have one buyer appointment, I have another buyer that's in their 60-day window to come. I have a third one that is coming in September. So, like people are coming later this year, too. I'm seeing that, which is not the traditional cycle, too. All that to say, I know mid-May to the end of June seems to be like that's where that sweet spot's going to be, just by my business, by the cadence of everybody reaching out to me and trying to do everything in their cycle. So, what I would say is hold on, hold on. I really hope the best for all of you if you are listed right now in the next 45 days. I think that is your sweet spot, is the next 45 days. So if you have been on the market for a while, it is time to refresh, brighten up, maybe take some like new external spring pictures to boost on your listing. Maybe it's time to do another circus round, like mean like some big open house weekend, get some like great eyes on it, do some broker opens where we have the agents coming through. And all this is so subjective to your areas. Some of this stuff really is hit or miss in our areas. Open houses are just not super prevalent when you have, I want to say military markets in general, unless somebody's already boots on the ground, like the open houses aren't really that prevalent. And most of the time, at least in my case, most of my buyers are looking before they're ever here. So they're going through an agent. They're not here physically, and unless they're close enough, they don't get here unless they absolutely have to. That's kind of hard, right? But a broker open, if we could get agents through the door that are looking out and keeping an eye for our clients, that could be really good. And just really giving back some life to it. Because I always say the listing sweet spot is between April 15 and May 15. So, like, we are in that sweet spot for things to get moving. So I just want you guys to know that this is totally normal. We are in the good window right now. So I so hope if you have a house on the market right now, the beginning of May of 2026, I am sending you all the good juju that in the next 45 to 60 days, you're going to be under contract and on your way to your next adventure. So it is normal, it is normal, it is normal for properties to be on the market a little bit longer, depending on supply and demand and the economics of the area. So the other big thing that shifted in my case with this listing, which we've talked about before in previous podcasts, is it was only a year old. The house was only a year old when they bought it, or when they sold it. Excuse me, they bought it brand new. Their builder is building the same floor plan within a two-mile radius of us, $20,000 less. What? What a year later? How does that help me? I can't do anything with that. But that's our reality, right? Is like they have those margins apparently, and they're doing this crazy shenanigans, and it's really impacting the resales. So just know that you are not alone. You are not alone, my friend. And it is normal in a in a very like even keel market where we have a good amount of inventory that you will be on the market for a longer time frame. And it's also really random right now. So if you have an agent that is like saying, hey, there's not really a lot of correlation, they're probably right. I literally just looked up stats on a property the other day and I was like, I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you if you drop the price to X that it'll sell. But there's literally no correlation. There's onesie twosies every which way, and nothing that there's not like this sweet spot where it shows if you were in this price point in this location, then you should be good. The bulk of the properties that are literally sitting right now are in like 350s and under. We are priced higher than that, but some of the ones that have recently sold are around our price point or higher. So, like the price point is not our issue. It's literally that there is plenty of inventory every which way and what's going. It just has to be the right fit. You have to write for that, find that right buyer that is the right fit. And we also don't want to just like hope and wish and pray for any person to walk through the door because it needs to be a good fit for everybody. It truly does. You don't want a buyer that is wishy-washy or not quite sure about the property, putting in an offer, anyways, just to turn around and change their mind or pull it out from underneath of you later. We want confidence all the way around. So, as much as it might be hard to wait and hang tight and be patient, just know that the right person is coming. We just have to hang tight and let them find your beautiful house. So you keep holding tight, you keep loving that house, make it beautiful, shiny, make sure that it is show ready at any given time because when you least expect it is when it's gonna go, baby. It's like you're gonna be ready to go to on vacation and go out the door, and you're packing for a week to leave the house and have tossed the whole house. You better put that sucker right back together because I bet you're gonna have a whole bunch of showings all of a sudden, right? You're gonna have family in town and you wanna block out showings for a week, you best just tell that family, hey, I've got 30 minutes notice, and then we're gonna ship up and get out, and you're gonna help me clean up this house. We're gonna grab a laundry basket, throw everything in it that we possibly can, and I'm gonna wipe down the countertops. Let's go. So have those contingency plans in place because that is like the law of real estate. For realtors, if we want to do something like personal for us, but have a family day and be away from our phone, nope, you're gonna come back to a phone and it's gonna be blown up. Or you want to go on vacation, okay? Now it's time for five buyers to come out of the woodworks and all, by the way, three listings want to be on like yesterday. This is like traditionally the law of real estate. Prepare your summer leave, your vacations, prepare to have family in town, and then make sure you have all those contingency places in place so that way your house can sell. I am sending you so much love, friends. This is a big frustration for a lot of sellers right now. So please know that you are not alone. You are not alone. You're not alone. But if you've not bought or sold a property since before 2020, this feels really tough. And even if you have bought or sold before 2020, it's really hard to remember that far back. It's it just is. We are forgetful people, and it's just like having babies. We we have a baby and we say, We're never doing that again. And then three months later, it's oh my gosh, this little baby, I want another one now. And you totally forget about all the hardship and the pain. The same thing can happen with all these processes. We live life, we go through it, and then we move on. So just remember that someone else has already been there, done that before, and you're going to make it through too. You've got this, you've got this. And if you need any help or advice or just a listening ear, I am here in your corner cheering you on, my friends. Hey, I just wanted to. Thank you for being here and listening in on this episode of Closing Chapters with me. I truly enjoy putting this content together, and I hope that you enjoy it too. If so, could you like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you know that will enjoy it just as much as you did? Thank you so much.