A Middle School Dance. 💃🏻 😬 🕺🏽

Brock's newsletter | SEPTEMBER 25, 2026

A Middle School Dance.

I heard someone describe today's real estate market as a middle school dance: buyers on one side of the gym, sellers on the other, and nobody wants to make the first move.

The buyers, by default, sort of have the upper hand. Remember, nobody has to buy a house. Buyers can always rent and wait it out.

Or just throw in the towel and be a “forever renter,” which is getting mentioned more and more.

With sellers, however, life happens, and sometimes they have to move. The cheesy old saying in real estate is that selling happens because one of the Five D's of real estate:

Divorce
Death
Diamonds (marriage)
Diapers (a new baby)
Debt (the payment no longer works)

But even within those categories, there are levels of urgency.

What we are not seeing (yet) is a significant number of motivated sellers – motivated enough to lower their price enough to significantly move the overall market.

It just feels like nothing is cheap. Well, except rental units. Prices of apartment buildings are down 30%. Good times for buyers in that category.

But homeowners generally can wait until they get their price.

The Reason to Move that Disappeared

I left off one of the major Ds: Downsizing. That's because nobody seems to do it anymore.

It used to be that empty nesters sold the family home and handed it off to the next young family. Both sets of my grandparents did exactly that – when I visited as a kid, they lived in condos. They had sold the houses they raised their kids in and moved into smaller homes.

That’s old news. The olds are now staying put.

And even if they wanted to downsize, they have fewer options: the condo construction business in this state has effectively collapsed, largely due to construction-defect lawsuits. So older homeowners stay put, and the homes that young families need stay off the market.

Waiting Game

So here we are, everyone hugging the gym wall.

The chatter among Realtors is packed open houses, no offers. Days on Market is increasing (i.e., homes are taking longer to sell) and price reductions abound.

My advice to buyers is always the same: be a market maker. Rather than waiting for the “market” to change, if you're a buyer, be ready for that really motivated seller when they come to market. Price drop? Be the first in.

Someone has to cross the floor first. When they do, grab their hand.