A sold sign in front of a craftsman style home

For sellers

Your first price is the whole game.

Not your second price after you have been sitting for 45 days. Your first one.

If you are in one of the mixed or softer markets, what I call Market 2 or Market 3, the one thing I can tell you is that realistic pricing on day one is not optional. It is everything.

Do not price with the number you want. Price with the number you have evidence the market will likely pay. I am not saying sell yourself short or give your house away. I am saying research is the whole job here, and it has to happen before you go live, not after.

The sellers who are winning right now, the ones capturing about 97% of their asking price, got there because they priced into the market rather than above it. That difference in strategy is the difference between sold and sitting.

What Orlando sellers actually get versus what they ask

Source: Zillow Research · Data through May 2026

Condition and presentation decide whether yours is the home they remember at dinner. Price decides whether they come at all.

The conversation I have every week

I know what you are going to say. Roody, price cuts are down and inventory is low. I am going to throw it across the plate and see if I get a home run out of it.

I am telling you: the listings sitting out there right now are a function of price and appeal. Maybe, just maybe, it is an advertising gap and the agent is doing a poor job marketing it. But far more often it is price and appeal being out of alignment. Buyers look at the house, look at your asking price, and go what in the world is going on here.

And here is the part that stings. When you do that, you are helping all of your neighbors sell their homes. Your overpriced listing is the comparison that makes their fairly priced one look like a deal. I am not trying to be mean. That is the functional way this works on the buying side.

This is my professional judgment from working this market, not a measured statistic.

Your competition is not the house down the street

In a lot of these corridors it is a builder with a rate buydown and closing cost credits. A buyer comparing monthly payments may find new construction cheaper than your resale even at a higher sticker price. You have to price knowing that is on the table.

Sitting costs real money every month

Mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, upkeep. Every week past the right number is carrying cost paid against a buyer who has multiple options and knows it. The market does not reward patience at the wrong price.

Appeal is half the equation

Buyers tour four or five homes in a day and compare them against each other, not against your memory of 2022. Condition, photos and presentation decide whether yours is the one they remember at dinner.

Share of Orlando listings cutting price

Source: Realtor.com Economic Research · Data through July 2026

Check what market your ZIP is in See the full data

Let us price it on evidence

Tell me about your home and I will show you the actual evidence for what the market will pay, including what the builders nearby are offering. Eyes wide open, no sales pitch.