A costly mistake is tripping up home sellers in 2026—and it starts on day one

If you’re putting your home on the market this summer, you may want to temper your expectations. Gone are the days of aggressive bidding wars during the housing market frenzy of 2021 and 2022. In the latest sign that dynamics have shifted in favor of buyers, the average single-family home sold for nearly 1% below its final listing price in March, according to a report released Thursday by Realtor.com. “We’ve gone from a market where sellers could price aggressively and still get above asking, to one where overpricing has real consequences,” Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, said in a statement. “Buyers have more leverage than they’ve had in years.” What’s key in today’s housing market is getting the listing price right from the start, according to Berner. The four-week mark is especially crucial now, as that’s when sellers are entertaining competing offers or will need to cut the listing price, he said. Indeed, the Austin-based real estate site found that those homes that sold at the four-week mark closed 1.8 percentage points higher than the average home sold during that month. And sellers fared even better if their homes went into contract during the first two weeks on the market, according to the report. By contrast, sellers who let their homes languish on the market are faring the worst. When homes sell 18 weeks after being listed, they close 1.3 percentage points below the monthly average, according to the findings. “Today, an overpriced home doesn’t just sit—it gets stale, loses leverage, and sells for less than it would have if it had been priced right from the start,” Berner said. CONDOS, SELLERS IN SOUTH FARE WORST Of course, not all housing markets are experiencing the same type of softness. In what’s likely not news to people trying to sell a condo or townhome, the market is especially soft. Listing prices for condos have fallen 6% since 2022, and the average condo is selling for 2.1% below its final listing price. What’s more, the parti