Why Some Homes Aren’t Selling As Fast

Anthony Lamacchia: Anthony, what is happening to the market? Anthony, will it be like this for the rest of the year? Anthony, I have five listings. They’re all sitting. I don’t know what to do. I have four sellers that are mad at me. They’re blaming me that their home isn’t selling. Anthony, I can’t believe it. My buyers complained for three years that there was nothing for sale. Now there’s homes for sale, condos for sale, and they’re hesitating. They’re stopping short. They’re not following through. What is going on? What’s going to happen?

Will it be like this for the rest of the year? Will next year be better? What’s going on? What should I do? How do I recommend, and give advice to my clients? Those are just some of the questions that I am getting from realtors every day of every week, literally all over, here at my company, other companies, companies across New England, Florida, Texas, California. I’m hearing it everywhere.

In order for me to answer that question of what I think will happen from the middle of, say, ’25, which is where we are now, on to ’28, I first have to, because I do have a prediction for you, I first have to do a little review with you of what happened 2020 to ’25, because if you don’t understand what happened here, you won’t understand why I’m going to make the prediction I’m going to make for the rest of the decade.

Let’s jump back in the time capsule to 2020, okay? Early 2020, before COVID hit, there were, I don’t know, a million and a half homes for sale in the United States, okay? There were a lot more buyers. When we went into ’20, there was multiple offer situations in ’19, but it wasn’t screaming hot like it was in this period. There were definitely more buyers than there were sellers.

COVID hits, they say, “Everybody stay in your home, especially those of you over 60.” What happened? Those over 60 with the move up homes, the three, four-bedroom colonials, they all pull their homes off the market, because they don’t want anyone coming in. The amount of sellers, pink line, goes down immediately. Amount of buyers, maybe initially, it might have slowed down a little bit, generally stayed the same.

Then, we got to the fall of ’20, interest rates went down, so the amount of buyers went up. Amount of buyers didn’t just go up, it skyrocketed, completely skyrocketed when that happened. Amount of buyers goes up, amount of sellers goes down. Right around this time period, we went less than 10,000 homes for sale here in Massachusetts. By the time we got to early ’21, there was less than a million homes for sale in the United States.

The whole thing went crazy, inventory went down a lot. Inventory goes down, buyers go up. What happens? I shouldn’t say– Yes, the amount of sellers. The amount of homes for sale goes down. Interest rates go down, the amount of buyers goes up. What happens to prices? If I had another line here, I would be showing you the prices went up.

Rates stayed extremely low. We got to about three years ago, middle of ’22, rates went up a whole point. What happened to the amount of buyers? The amount of buyers started going down a little bit, but there was still so many more buyers than there were sellers. No one quite felt it yet. Amount of sellers went up, right? This is just an arbitrary line that I drew, but the amount of sellers went up.

It pretty much stayed about the same, ’23, ’24. Amount of buyers is going down, down. All of a sudden, last fall, you notice I started to put this line up right here. Heck, maybe I even should have put it up in here. All of a sudden, last September, more listings were coming on. Why? Pressure in the economy, financial pressures. Interest rates went down last August. It made more sellers say, “Hey, we can sell, we can buy something else, and still have a decent rate, not as low as it was.” More people got into action.

We get to the Spring, the economic pains that have been out there for a while, start to be felt more. There’s tariffs, there’s presidential change. Every time there’s a presidential change, they all do the same thing. They make a thousand promises. They say they’re going to fix things quickly. Three months after they get into office, the economy hits a very tough time. No different this time.

Same thing happened in 2009 when Barack Obama came in. He had hope and change. He comes in, stock market hits its worst point in mid-to-late March 2009, look it up. Trump comes in this time, gets sworn in January 20th. When did the stock market hit its worst? Early April. Now, people have job fears. Fears of losing their jobs. The amount of buyers goes down, right? Black line.

All of a sudden, the amount of sellers starts going up, and they crisscross. For the first time, if I had this board going longer, probably since 2018. Now, we’re in a situation where, guess what? There’s more sellers than there are buyers. What does that mean? That means that sellers have to price right. Many sellers actually have to price their home not only a little bit lower than they would have, but lower than all the comparative sales in the area, and active sales that are actively– Homes that are actively up for sale, because if they don’t, they won’t stand out to the buyer. The buyer won’t bite the hook.

Now, as we go through this year, you’re going to see, you can see I stopped the lines here. Here’s what’s going to happen the rest of this year till we get to about mid-October, late October. Hold on. I went a little too far with my line. I went into ’26. Right now, let’s say we’re here, as we keep going. Really great spelling of sellers there, huh? Sellers. It’s going to go up. The amount of buyers is going to continue to go down.

Now, here’s the golden question. When we get to Q1 of ’26 right here, will it revert back? Because usually in the beginning of the year, no matter what the year back 20 years, usually, there’s more buyers in the first quarter of the year than there are sellers. How dramatic will this get? Will this just do this the rest of the year? Will buyers maybe do that? Then, when we get to January– Remember, December 31st, every single year, the amount of homes for sale drops.

January 1st, every year, that’s the least amount of homes for sale of the whole year that day. When that happens, no question, when we go into ’26, the amount of homes for sale is going to drop, right? By then, will there be more buyers in the market? Will buyers go back above, and sellers go back below? Probably, because that’s typically what happens in a Q1, but here’s the ultimate question mark, right?

What will happen with mortgage interest rates? What will happen? Here’s what I think. Do you notice they’re inching down little-by-little? They’ve been inching down. I think they’re going to inch down more. I think as we get later in the year, they’re going to come down a good amount. President Trump’s putting pressure on the Fed. Some Fed board members came out the other day, said they disagreed with Jerome Powell, and they think rates should come down.

Short-term rates going to get lowered, but that doesn’t have a direct immediate impact on long-term rates, but it has a peripheral impact. I think by the time we get to the end of the year, early next year, rates are going to be more like 6%. If that happens, the amount of buyers will go up. Whoops, wrong color. Amount of buyers will go up. Sellers will be low for the winter. Then, they start coming up in the spring.

The question is, will they crisscross back? I don’t know. It really depends on what happens with interest rates. Here’s what I want to point out to you. We should all be happy. Us realtors should be happy. For the buyers and sellers that see this, because I know many of you will see it, you should be happy too, because home prices have done this since 2020.

Ready, set. They literally went flying up like this, and it was too much. They’ve been going up too quickly. Sellers got cocky. Listing agents got cocky, and it’s no good. Now, they’re doing this. In some places, they’re actually starting to dip a little bit. We’re seeing that even here in Massachusetts with tighter inventory. It’s too much. It went up too fast.

What sellers need to remember though is, they gain 30% to 60% depending upon market in a five-year period. That’s a lot. If you have to give back 5% or 10% of that, so what? I’m not concerned about it. I bought buildings. This building I’m standing in, isn’t probably worth as much as it was three or four years ago. I don’t care. Doesn’t matter. If you’re a seller who’s also going to buy something else, you should be happy.

I know the majority of this audience is realtors, but my point with these lines is, we’ve been operating in a space, just to summarize, where there’s been so many more buyers than there have been sellers for five years. In order to get inventory up, which contributes to stopping inflation. Inflation has been out of control for, what? Four or five years, and that is what raised prices on everything, and then, subsequently, raised prices on mortgage rates, right?

In order to fix that, the amount of sellers has to go up. The amount of buyers has to go down. Prices have to reset. Is this going to be a reset like ’08? I strongly doubt it. I strongly doubt it. Strongly. I’m pretty well-convinced. Are we going to see some price give back over the next six months? Probably. A little bit. If you’re a buyer, that shouldn’t scare you. That should excite you.

You want to buy when everyone else is nervous, and you want to sell when everyone else is being greedy, or hold off when everyone else is being greedy. If you ask me what’s going to happen the rest of the year? We’re generally going to be in a buyer’s market for the rest of the year. We get to the first of the year, I think that we will go back to a seller’s market, at least for Q1.

The buyers that don’t buy in the next six months, they wait until the first of the year. First of the year, they’ll regret it. Then, by the time we get to next year at this time in ’26, what’s really going to happen? Will the amount of buyers stay above the amount of sellers– Go back and then stay, or will the amount of sellers go higher? It depends on mortgage rates. I can tell you this, though, for certainty.

By the time we get to ’28, ’29, ’30, ’31, you’re going to again see– In here, it could do a little of this, a little crisscrossing throughout the year on the amount of buyers and the amount of sellers, but by the time we get to the end of this decade, the amount of buyers is going to do that, because the economy is going to boom, okay? The amount of sellers, yes, there’ll be a lot more sellers, there’ll be a lot more sales, but the homes are going to get eaten up, because mortgage rates are going to be on by then, and we’re going to be back to selling five million plus homes in the United States annually. Truth be told, I think it’s going to be more than that.

I think the end of the decade, we’re going to be looking at six million, seven million home sales for sure, because there was so few over the last few years, because of this housing recession. I hope that makes sense. I hope these squiggly lines didn’t confuse you too much, but again, right now, definitely more buyers– I’m sorry, definitely more sellers than buyers.

It might do some of this, and then as it readjusts, we’ll go on another 10-year run. I have no doubt about the long-term longevity of the real estate market, and none of you should either. That’s all. Good luck. Happy home selling. Leave comments if you’re confused. If you have questions, leave comments here on YouTube or Instagram. Thank you.

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