When did taking three weeks to sell a home become a sign that something was wrong? Or when did negotiating a purchase price, including a home inspection, or taking a few days to make a decision become unusual? Not so long ago, these were perfectly ordinary parts of buying and selling real estate.

 Then came 2021. 

Fifteen-minute showings. Lineups outside front doors. Twenty buyers competing for the same property. Homes selling $100,000 over asking barely raised an eyebrow. It was a party, all right. And seemingly everyone wanted an invitation. As 2026 comes to a close, the music has stopped, but some people are still dancing. 

Still Playing by Yesterday’s Rules 

Over a recent four-day period, 39 new homes came onto the market in an area I was reviewing. Approximately 15% were holding offers, a strategy many will remember from the bidding wars of 2021. One of those properties, after three days on the market, had no showings booked for the following two days. Think about that. Holding offers can still work under the right circumstances. But a strategy designed to generate urgency and competition requires something rather important: interested buyers. You can’t recreate yesterday’s market simply by using yesterday’s playbook.

 So, What Does Normal Actually Look Like? 

Over the past five years, we’ve grown accustomed to hearing newer agents ask, “What does a normal real estate market actually look like?” It’s an interesting question, particularly when you consider that a normal market isn’t necessarily a balanced one.

 A balanced market is generally defined as having approximately four to six months of inventory, where neither buyers nor sellers hold a significant advantage. But real estate has always moved in cycles. Prices rise, stabilize and sometimes decline. Homes sell quickly in some markets and take longer in others. 

None of that necessarily signals a problem. So, have the extraordinary conditions of 2020 through 2022 distorted our perception of what normal looks like? After all, there was nothing particularly normal about expecting every home to attract multiple offers, sell within days and appreciate dramatically year after year. Yet somehow, extraordinary became our benchmark.

 Buyers Finally Have What They Wanted. So Why the Hesitation? 

Remember what buyers desperately wanted in 2021? More inventory. Less competition. Time to think. The ability to negotiate and include conditions. Today, many of those opportunities exist and yet, buyers are hesitating. Their concerns are understandable. Affordability remains challenging, economic uncertainty is real, and nobody wants to buy a home only to watch its value decline. But there’s also an interesting psychological shift. When prices were climbing, buyers feared missing out. Now that prices have softened, some fear buying too soon. The fear of missing out has been replaced by the fear of making the wrong decision. So what are buyers waiting for? Lower prices? Lower rates? Some unmistakable signal that the market has reached the bottom? The difficulty is that turning points rarely announce themselves. We usually recognize them in hindsight.

 Opportunity Hasn’t Disappeared. It’s Changed. 

For sellers, opportunity today means realistic pricing, excellent presentation and recognizing the value of a serious offer. For buyers, it means having the freedom to negotiate, include protective conditions and make thoughtful decisions. Neither side can control what happens next. But both can adjust their expectations to the market in front of them. A changing market isn’t necessarily a bad market. 

It’s simply a market that demands different decisions. Maybe today’s real estate market isn’t suffering from a hangover at all. Maybe the real hangover is in our expectations. And perhaps we need to stop judging today’s opportunities against a party that was never going to last forever.