Selling A Home in 2026. What does selling your house look like right now? | The Powers Playbook ep. 5

Selling a home in 2026 looks very different than it did just a few years ago.

In this episode of The Powers Playbook, Aaron Powers breaks down what homeowners need to understand about selling in today’s real estate market. From pricing strategy and market timing to competition and buyer expectations, this episode gives sellers a realistic look at what it takes to successfully sell a home in the current environment.

During the COVID-era housing boom, many homes sold in just days with multiple offers. Today’s market requires a different approach — one built on strategy, patience, and understanding the true motivation behind selling.

If you’re thinking about selling your home, this episode will help you better understand how to prepare, price, and position your property so you can navigate the market with confidence.

In This Episode

• Why motivation to sell matters more than ever in today’s market
• The difference between the COVID housing boom and today’s market conditions
• Why patience is critical when selling in 2026
• How supply and demand affect your home’s market value
• The importance of understanding local market trends and neighborhood competition
• Why pricing your home correctly from the start is crucial
• How a home's condition, updates, and features impact buyer decisions
• Understanding the concept of your ideal buyer avatar

Aaron also explains how sellers should think like buyers when evaluating their home’s value — considering things like updates, layout, and how the property compares to others currently on the market.

Key Takeaway

The market doesn’t determine what you want your home to sell for — it determines what buyers are willing to pay today.

Successful sellers focus on:

• realistic pricing
• understanding competition
• presenting their home well
• and having a clear plan for what comes next after the sale.

Thinking About Selling Your Home?

If you're curious about your home’s current market value in the Las Vegas area, the team would be happy to help.

📧 info@powersre.com

About The Powers Playbook

The Powers Playbook explores the intersection of real estate, wealth, and family decisions. Each episode is designed to help you better understand the housing market and make smarter long-term financial decisions.

Subscribe for more conversations about real estate strategy, market insights, and navigating life’s biggest financial decisions.

Powers Real Estate
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Keller Williams The Marketplace

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You've opened the Powers Playbook. Your guide to family wealth and real estate. Welcome in friends. Welcome back to the show. Another episode of the Powers Playbook. The play that we are running today is to tell you what it's like to sell a house in 2026. So I've had a lot of people reach out to me. Hey, what's going on in the market? What's it like? You know, what's my house worth? And so this is going to kind of answer some of those questions on the landscape of the market for sellers this year in particular. So the first thing I want to say is, you know, why are you selling? This is always going to be the first question. What's the motivation to sell? And what I can tell you is if you are wanting to test the market to try to see the most money you can get for your property, this is probably not the market for that. It is, however, the market to sell if you truly have motivation. And what I mean by that is like you have a true reason to sell. You are empty nesters now, the kids are away. There's been a birth in the family, death in the family, divorce in the family, marriage in the family, like all of the big things that make people move, relocation, job, loss of job potentially. Um, and those, you know, or let's say investment property that you've been renting for the last 10, 15 years, yeah, you're definitely gonna have some equity in that and you're gonna make good return on that. So I I think the the key is is we just want to make sure that there is a level of why and motivation in what you're doing. If it's just the hey, I want to see what I can get for my house, uh, that market was COVID, right? That was 2020 to 2022, roughly. And uh we get sure a real good, real good deal on the house at that time. But in 2026, we need um we need a level of motivation, right? It's it's not the let's test the market. We've got to really be needing and willing to sell the property um so that we can go. So that's really step one. We want to start there. Um, the second thing I would say is we need to be patient. Um, this again is not the COVID market, it's not the we're gonna sell your house uh in a weekend in you know three days uh with 10 offers. Uh we're we're not there now. Uh we do have a listing that we sold this year that was on the market for one weekend, but that was very specific. Neighborhood, supply and demand, um, price. And so like those things are out there, but it's it's really dependent upon neighborhood and location. So it's not uh it's not typical for what we're seeing right now. The reason I say be patient is because if you have a a price or we get a valuation for the property and you want that price, it may take some time on the market to get it. You may be looking for the right buyer, uh specific buyer that fits the needs of that property. Um, so just keep that in mind. It's not a it's not a race. If you are in a race against time, let's say you have to sell a property by a certain amount of time, then we need to price accordingly for you to be able to get that quicker rather than being on the market for you know right up against that timeline and now we have to reduce it way down. We don't want to put you in that situation either. So it depends a little bit as far as what the motivation to sell is, if there's timing involved, but in in the context of what the market's doing right now, patience is is your virtue for 2026 if you're selling. Um as far as uh time goes, again, we we we want to be patient. We also want to make sure that we have an understanding of what we need to do by when. All right. So if you are like, hey, I need to sell my house in the next six months, okay, that gives us a great landscape. We can look at what is the market doing, what's happening in that specific a neighborhood or area of town, and make a plan that will get you what you're looking for by that date. So that's really kind of essential in in what we're looking for and selling is we need to know time, we need to know net or price, like what is it gonna get for that house. And then we need to know where you're going. What happens next? So, you know, I've had appointments where we've been on and we go and we're like, yeah, absolutely, we can sell your property for this much, this is what you'll make. Um and then they turn around and look at like, okay, well, I want to take that and I want to go here. And then we realize that, well, that amount of net or money or cash may not actually get we may not get you from A to B. So it may be better just to stay with A. Right. And so I wanted to touch on that. If if we're looking at doing something specific, like going from one house to the other, where we're selling and then buying, or selling and then investing, or selling and moving out of state, or whatever it is. If there's if there's a if one transaction's leading to another, we want to make sure that we can complete the second half of that and we're confident in it before we start the first. The last thing we want to do is for you to sell a property and have nowhere to go, right? Uh, we don't like anybody to be homeless, so we're not trying to uh set that up. We want to make sure that we are forecasting that we can complete the second purchase well before we start the first one. So again, what's the time involved? What's gonna happen next? Very important for you to talk to your agent about. If the only focus is, yes, let's sell this house, let's just do it, and there's no conversation about what happens after that, I would tell you you probably want to find somebody else to talk to, right? This is a this is a life decision. Okay, if this is solely an investment property for you and you're looking to sell this year, then my question is, what are you gonna do with the money? Right? If you're gonna make a significant amount of money and it's an investment property and you're all of a sudden gonna be hit with taxes on that, what does it make sense for you to do? Do we want to potentially 1031 exchange that property into another investment somewhere else? Maybe to multiple other investments where we can roll over that profit that you're making and not have to pay taxes on it this year. Um, so keep that in mind. We want to make sure that we're again, we're focusing on here, but what happens when we get there? And so we always want to set that up where we can feel confident in the second half of what we're looking to do. Okay, so that that's your time and what your you know landscape of getting from A to B might be. Next part of that we want to talk about is value. Okay, everybody wants to know what's the value of my home? Um, I like to talk about it in terms of market value, meaning, like if you were to list your house today, what would it sell for? That might not necessarily be what the value was previously, and it might not be what the value will be in six months or a year, but it's what is the value today? And that's very important because we want to understand what it could be on the open market if we were to do it today, meaning what are the days on market? What is the landscape of what's happening in in your specific community? And then going out further, what about like that? Maybe it's a master planned area or neighborhood that has other little pockets in it, and then going out even further, what's happening in Las Vegas or Clark County, or you know, the whole valley. So we we want to know what's happening hyperlocal and then what's happening outwardly, because we're really looking at supply and demand. That's the biggest thing that changes any market. How much inventory is available for sale, and how many people are looking to buy it, and that's really the main thing that's going to affect price. COVID happened and the supply was super low, and everybody wanted to move. Crazy. I know. I thought COVID was gonna be the opposite. Everybody wanted to move, and so because the supply was so little and there were so many people looking to do it, prices went up quite significantly in the short amount of time. Now flip that, where all of a sudden demand lowers over time with rates and adjustment in the market, and supply has now done what? It's growing. Supply has gotten bigger. So now you're in a situation where if you go and you list your home for sale, you're not the only one on your block or the only one in your neighborhood. There may be others. And so this is why I say it depends on where you are, because some neighborhoods still have a lack of supply. When the demand may be high because they want to be in that specific, let's say, school district, well, school zoning, right? Close to shopping, or you know, everybody wants to be whole close to a Whole Foods, right? Close to a Chick-fil-A. All right, like these certain things that people kind of want to be next to. I just use those as fun examples, but you kind of get my get my drift, right? Um, what are the important pieces that multiple people will be looking for? They're gonna have higher demand in those areas and potentially less supply. You may go a mile or two miles down the road and the supply is significant and there's less demand. We need to know that when we're giving market value for a property. It's not just like, oh, well, the last three sold for this, so your house is worth that. What if those last three sold six months ago? What if it was a year ago? Right? So we just want to make sure that we're looking at the quality of the property and the supply and demand, the actual statistics of what the market's doing to give a correct market value of property. And that's why I always use that term market value, because it may not be like the value that the data says it should be. It may be like, hey, this is what the last ones have sold for, but here's what's happening right now in the market. And so that can make a difference. Um, secondarily, when we talk about supply and demand, and we're talking about market stats, um, we want to focus on area. Yes, that's important. Um, we also want to focus on what's the condition of the property. Okay, so this is like a whole another conversation in itself. But when we're talking about demand and we're talking about what people are looking for when they're buying, they're going to be, let's say, judging your house, right? So, number one, we are in competition. We are in competition with anything that's directly surrounding your property that's also on the market or is coming to market, that's gonna be in competition for inventory. Okay, competition matters. If there are three other homes in your neighborhood, all listed at prices that are underneath what you're wanting to price your home at, and it's and it's more supply than demand, and we price your house above the other three, which ones do you think are gonna sell first? Unless your house is immaculate and offers the most amazing things, the other three that are a better value are probably gonna sell quicker. And I would argue that if you price your house too high in that situation, you're probably gonna help the other one sell first. So it's very important that we look at what's the active competition on the market, right? Because if let's say we have two properties like yours that sold three months ago for 500,000, we have three listings in your neighborhood that are similar that are on the market for 500,000. They're all exactly the same price, but none of them are selling. What is the market telling us? They're probably going to need to sell for under what previously had sold for. And that just means that there is more supply in that neighborhood than demand for it, right? It doesn't mean that prices are going way down, it doesn't mean they're going way up. It just means that in the in the neighborhood of the people shopping at that particular time, they may not see that inventory as something that has the demand, where the neighborhood one mile down may have a property that has just as much or better for 480 that they like, and they'll go buy that one. Okay. Now, that's not a huge difference in price where we're not talking about a huge percentage here, but you do want to keep in mind that we have to be competitive. So we're in a competition. Number two to that is we're also in a beauty pageant, right? Which means that our house has to look, feel, and give more than the next one it's competing with. Okay, so this is where we talk about condition of house. Things like RV parking, pool, what upgrades are done in the house, kitchens, bathrooms, countertops, flooring, um, you name it. These are the specific things that so we always talk to our buyers and we say, okay, what do you want versus what do you need? And we create a list, right? Give me all of your wants. And we we get it all down, we create a property search. And then after we get the wants, okay, out of all of that you gave me, what do you actually need?

unknown 13:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And of course, we're we're gonna cut that list down to the actual needs. Like, I want four bedrooms, but I might only need three. Okay, great. We're gonna look at three or more, just as an example for you. Like, I want a pool, but like I don't have to have one. Okay, great. So we're not gonna look at homes only with pools. So I give you that example because if that buyer starts shopping and they're looking at a similar price point of property, and one has a pool and one doesn't, and a pool is a want, which one do you think they're gonna try to buy first? If it's like value, or even maybe a little bit more and they can swing it, they're gonna look at the one with the pool. Okay. This doesn't mean if your house doesn't have a pool, it's not good. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just stating the fact of we are going to be in competition on price, but also on what makes the value. Okay. So little things in a market that has more competition that matter. What updates have you done to the house along the way? Are we looking at uh carpet everywhere, um, tile countertops, gold, light fixtures, gold handles, right? Is it is it set up in a way that the house is looks and feels like it should have been updated by now but hasn't been? And what if the one down the road is and they're selling for a similar price? Right? That tells you that you're probably gonna have to take less for a home that has not been updated over time. Now, this does not mean that you have to go out and update every single thing in your house. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need to be understanding of what price we're choosing to market our home at if the things are not updated and ready to go. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you if you're if you're listening to this, put your buyer hat on, or if you're watching, put your buyer hat on for a second. You're not long, you're no longer selling. You are walking into the home you're thinking about selling, and you're the buyer. How would you think and feel about the home if you were walking into it? Would you be like, oh my gosh, I don't have to do a single thing? This house is perfect. It's been updated, it's exactly what I want. It has, you know, quartz counters, um newer cabinets, uh, vinyl plank flooring. Like I'm just throwing out things to, you know, give you an idea of what we're looking at here. Or am I walking in going, like, oh man, I'd really like to replace that. I'd really like to update this. They don't have uh they don't have all the appliances. I probably have to buy those. Right? So so think about it from the aspect of if you were buying that home and you were shopping it against other homes and you walked in, would you see the value? Right? Would you be willing to pay top dollar of what the market would dictate for that property? Or would you walk in and think, all right, I'm gonna have to spend some money to make this what I want, so I'm probably gonna offer a little bit less. And so I think the reason I'm giving that example is we have to be honest with ourselves when we're looking at selling something, thinking like, okay, does this belong in the top tier of what's on the market? Is it somewhere in the middle? Or is it like, man, I've let this thing go and we're just gonna take whatever the bottom is that we can get for it? And either one is okay. We sell properties in all three tiers, but we just need to be upfront and honest about what the home is offering so that we can price it appropriately so that we're not sitting on the market and not selling. If we are willing to do that, again, we have to have patience in the process to allow the right person to come and look at it that might be willing to do some of the things that we were unwilling to do while we lived there, or unwilling to do while we rented in a tenant lived there. Um, you know, either way is fine. The reason I'm saying this is because I sometimes we go on appointments and we talk to the homeowner and they're like, oh, well, my house is great. My house has this, and the other one didn't have that, and has this and this and this and this. And I'm thinking, like, okay, great. You know, I hope that the next person who sees it loves it for all the reasons that you do, but they might not, right? I may see value in a pool, and buyer A comes and is like, oh, I definitely don't want to take care of a pool. That's a pain in the ass. Like, that's just more responsibility. I gotta pay to maintain it, I gotta pay for water, I gotta. So the buyer has to see value in the items that you see value in. Right? Um now, normally they do. So I will I will give you that. A lot of times when we sell a home, we try to come up with like who's the avatar that would be looking to buy this property. Meaning, if you are single, no kids, dog, outdoorsy, you're probably going to live a lifestyle inside of your house that is going to speak to the next person who is also single with a dog, outdoors. You see what I'm saying? And so most of the time, all things alike, we end up finding seller and buyer are kind of similar. So I'll give you an example. I sold a house earlier this year, it was a single-story property, only two bedrooms, um, corner lot, no HOA, nice big backyard, right? Small house, again, only two bedrooms. Most of the time you find this model of house in like a 55 and older or senior living community where like you don't need a bunch of bedrooms anymore. It's just you. So it was a single guy, big dog, and he lived in this house. And he was very minimalistic, didn't really need much. And we had some, we had quite a few showings, no offers. Um, it was priced actually like slightly under market value. So that he was totally like on board with the price that it would take to sell the house. So we kept it where it was. Eventually, came along, an older gentleman, two big dogs, and it was it was almost funny how alike they were in the context of who sold the property and who bought the property. Now, he was willing to be patient, knowing what the property was worth in today's market, and willing to wait to find the right buyer. In that situation, it worked out perfectly. If he needed to sell that property to somebody different and he needed to do it twice as fast, our option would have been to take less and lower the price because the house was not updated. Um, you know, it needed some things that somebody would come in and do it, or someone who's accepting of it for what it is. And that's what I mean by being patient. In that situation, patience worked out, he found somebody just like him. But the avatar I'm talking about is it it holds true a lot in real estate. A lot of times we can kind of dictate, like, hey, this price point is gonna be, you know, probably your first-time home buyer, right? Your FHA buyer, your VA buyer, someone with the lower down payment who may need help with closing costs. And so we'll have that conversation up front. Like, hey, here's what's going on in the market right now. If you're gonna sell this property, here's the likely buyer for it. And so we want to prepare you that they may not have all the cash necessary. We may be looking at a situation where they ask us for some help, right, with closing costs, buying down their interest rate so they can afford the payment, something like that. Whereas you have, you know, uh a luxury property with, you know, humongous lot and and pool and bunch of bedrooms, right? We have a different avatar for that property. We're gonna set that one up to say, like, you know, hey, this person who comes in here, they're gonna be very well financed, or they're gonna have all the cash to purchase this property. So the negotiating we're gonna be doing on this one is probably directly off of the purchase price. There may not be a whole lot of concessions going on here, and so it's Just good to give that level of information up front so that you have an understanding of who your who your quote unquote avatar or buyer might be. Um, I I heard a long time ago, and I've always has always stuck with me that facts tell and stories sell. So when we're selling a property, what story are we telling to the buyer? Are we telling them the story of I loved this house, I cared for it for the last 10 years? It's immaculate, um, everything is in pristine condition, and I'm pricing it the way I am because I've done everything to keep this property up. Or is the story that we're telling, like, hey, I grew my family in this house. We had four kids, it's a little, you know, it's not perfect. We didn't have time to maintain everything. It may be a little beat up. And here's the price that reflects that. We'd love for you to move in, make it your own, fix it up, and make and build equity. And hopefully you can do the same thing for your family. Right? What story are we telling? And we have to make sure that our motivation, our price, our timeline, our patience matches the story that we're telling to the consumer who's looking at that property when they walk through the door. Right. Because if they walk through, they may see the benefits, but they may not see the benefits at that price. Right? They may see the benefits at this price over here. And so we just want to make sure that we're setting up the sellers in today's market to understand what process they're about to go through. It doesn't make it good or bad or you know, indifferent any other way. It's just, it is what it is, right? The market is the market. We don't get to, we don't get to decide the market, right? We just get to help you navigate it. So I wish I could change it for you. I wish I could make the property worth what you want it to sell for. Um, and so I think that's really the heavy lifting is going through this information up front and making sure that there's, you know, an honest like prescription of the property in a sense that you can then take and feel good about knowing, okay, what's our plan here? What do we need to do to actually have success in the market? Because you can have success selling a home in any market, right? It may not be the market you want to sell in necessarily, but like we talked about earlier, the people who are in the market today are motivated for a specific reason. So it's likely that they need to do something. So, how can we make that the best possible situation where we're not starting, for instance, like way too high for something that should be priced mid-level, right? We just want to be honest with what that conversation entails. And then we got to pick our avatar, which is always fun doing to see if we can get it right on who ends up being the one to buy the property and how the stories align and and what that looks like. Um, I do want to go over one thing as well, as far as um uh buyers are concerned. Most people will tell you, like, oh, I don't mind fixing things. Like, yeah, yeah, no, totally. We can we can we can fix that. We don't mind doing rehab, like we we we we like projects, no problem at all. 95% of people will pick the home that's ready to go. I'm just telling you, because it takes a special person or people to actually see the one that's not in good condition and see the equity build and the value and be willing to put in the work. They're out there, but they're very, very few compared to those that want something ready to move into right now. So just keep that in mind. If you have the opportunity to make updates over time, do so. You know, pick a project a year, right? Keep the house going, keep it, keep it updated, keep it in good condition, and you will reap the benefits in the long run. Now, if you haven't done that and you still need to sell, absolutely let's do it. Don't turn around and try to fix up your whole house right before you sell it. In most cases, maybe in some, but in most, I would prefer you to sell the property for what it's actually worth. Keep the money in your pocket and take it with you to wherever the next place you're going and spend it there where you can actually enjoy it. It just doesn't feel great to live in the house, not do anything to it, spend a bunch of money updating it and then give it to somebody else. Because you're really spending money to just try to make it back. And in that situation, I would advise you just take it with you. You know, let's sell this here for whatever the most we can get it for in the condition that it's in. We can do some little tweaks and things, but in the long run, we want to have you get to where you're going with the most cash as possible so that you can make up for it on the next purchase. All right. So hopefully this uh this helped you and give you an idea of what the landscape is like um selling a property in 2026. Uh, we are in the Las Vegas real estate market. If you need anything at all or curious about what your property would sell for or what that market value is for you, reach out to us. Our uh email is info at powersre.com and we'll get back to you with some information. Uh until next time, uh my name's Aaron Powers, and hope to see you guys on the next one. Love you, I'm gonna be a little bit more.