When Should You Reduce the Price of a Home That Isn't Selling?
There isn't a set number of days. What showings, feedback, and offers are telling you, and how to make a price reduction work like a relaunch instead of a nudge.
There isn’t a set number of days.
I don’t believe that a house automatically needs a price reduction because it has been on the market for 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days. I also don’t think a seller should hold onto a price just because “we haven’t given it enough time.”
The better question is: what has the market actually told us since we listed?
That’s the conversation I keep finding myself having with sellers.
If nobody is scheduling a showing, that tells us something. If buyers are showing up but nobody is writing, that tells us something different. If we’re getting offers, but they’re consistently landing well below where the seller wants to be, that’s different again.
The number of days matters, but the activity inside those days matters a lot more.
I recently looked at a property where the seller had already tried the market, didn’t sell, and then came back at an even higher price — roughly $30,000 above where it had previously been positioned. The thought seemed to be that they could make the higher price work by offering some money back toward closing costs.
Closing-cost credits can absolutely be useful. I negotiate them all the time.
But a credit doesn’t automatically fix bad positioning.
If buyers look at the price online and decide the house isn’t worth seeing, they may never get far enough into the process to care about the credit. You have to get them through the door first.
That’s an important distinction.
The market doesn’t care what you need to make
This can be a tough conversation.
A seller may have bought the house for a certain amount. They may have put money into it. They may need a certain amount for the next house. They may have a mortgage payoff, moving costs, commissions, or some number in their head that makes selling feel worthwhile.
All of those things matter to the seller.
They just don’t determine market value.
I’ve had another recent seller situation where we had to work through selling versus holding the property. Instead of just talking about what the owner originally paid, we looked at what he would actually net at several realistic sale prices and compared that with what another year of owning the property could cost him.
That changes the conversation.
Maybe taking $20,000 less today feels terrible. But what if holding the property costs another $10,000 or $12,000 over the next year between the monthly shortfall, maintenance, vacancy, management and everything else that comes with owning it?
Now we aren’t debating whether the seller “lost” $20,000.
We’re comparing two actual financial decisions.
That’s how I think sellers should look at pricing.
A seller’s next move matters too
I’ve spoken with owners whose previous sale fell apart not because they couldn’t find a buyer, but because their next move didn’t work.
That matters.
Sometimes the seller does have an offer in front of them. Sometimes there is plenty of equity. Sometimes the house itself isn’t even the problem.
The seller simply can’t make the other side of the move work yet.
That doesn’t mean we pretend the property is worth more. It means the pricing conversation has to fit into the bigger plan.
Where are you going?
What do you owe?
What do you actually walk away with?
What does the next property cost?
What does waiting cost?
Those numbers matter a lot more to me than saying, “Well, let’s just try another $10,000 higher and see what happens.”
One interested buyer doesn’t necessarily mean your price is right
I was working through this exact problem recently.
We already had a plan that if a property didn’t produce the activity we wanted, we were going to reduce the price and give it another push going into the weekend.
Then a buyer started showing legitimate interest.
Now what?
You don’t need to panic and immediately slash the price. But you also shouldn’t abandon the entire pricing conversation because one buyer raised their hand.
Give the interest a chance to become something real.
An offer is information.
A showing is information.
Feedback is information.
A buyer saying, “I like it,” is nice — but that alone doesn’t establish market value.
There is a point where sellers spend too much time protecting the asking price and not enough time paying attention to what actual buyers are willing to do.
If I’m going to reduce the price, I want it to do something
This is probably the biggest thing.
I don’t love random price reductions.
Dropping a few thousand dollars just so we can say we changed the price doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything.
If we make an adjustment, I want to know why we’re doing it.
Can we enter a different search range?
Can we get in front of buyers who weren’t seeing us before?
Does the new price compare more favorably against the houses buyers are choosing instead?
Can we pair the reduction with a weekend open house, fresh marketing, renewed agent outreach and another push to everyone who previously showed interest?
A good price reduction isn’t just changing a number in MLS.
It should feel more like a relaunch.
That’s especially true when we’ve learned something during the first couple weeks on market. Maybe the feedback exposed an objection we weren’t expecting. Maybe another comparable sold. Maybe competing inventory came on. Maybe interest rates moved and the same buyer who could afford the payment a few weeks ago is now looking at a different price range.
The market can change while your house is sitting there.
Your strategy has to be allowed to change with it.
The worst thing you can do is chase the market because you refuse to listen to it
What I try to avoid is the seller who says no to a meaningful adjustment, waits another few weeks, drops a little, waits again, drops a little more, and eventually ends up at the number we probably should have addressed much earlier.
Meanwhile, the listing has accumulated days on market and buyers have watched every adjustment.
That’s different from making one deliberate move with a reason behind it.
It also doesn’t mean that every seller should reduce.
If we’re getting strong activity, if a legitimate buyer is actively working toward an offer, if the comparable sales support us, or if there is another strategic reason to stay put, holding the price can make complete sense.
But we should be able to explain why we’re holding it.
“Because I want more money” isn’t really a pricing strategy.
So, when should you reduce the price of a home that isn’t selling?
When the market has given you enough evidence that your current position isn’t producing the outcome you want — and when changing the price can materially improve that position.
Not because you’re nervous.
Not because an arbitrary number of days passed.
And not because somebody on the internet said every listing should reduce after two weeks.
Look at the showings. Look at the feedback. Look at the offers. Look at what buyers are choosing instead. Look at your actual net. Look at what waiting costs you. And then make the decision based on the whole picture.
At some point, the market gets a vote.
My job is to make sure my seller is actually listening when it does.
Originally published on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab).
This article is general information about Massachusetts real estate, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Every property and transaction is different. For advice on your situation, talk with me and, where appropriate, an attorney, lender, or tax professional.