- Tom BrezsnyTHIS Market is Not THAT Market Part 4
Continuing the conversation … talking about how THIS market (October 2025) is no longer THAT market, (all-time peak of 2021-2022. ) After last week’s column, a reader asked why I’ve been “so negative” about the market and “so critical” of seller decision making.
Yes, I’ve been a little hard on sellers lately, but I don’t see that as negative. It’s more of an act of “tough love” that’s saying: “The very best thing I can do for you if you’re selling, is tell the truth about the market so you’ll have more context to position yourself wisely.”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s hard to get accurate, truthful information about the market in real time. In part, because agents/brokers often fear that by talking about the market when it isn’t going well, they’ll make things even worse!
Sellers are still way ahead of the curve of what they could have ever dreamed about getting for their homes, even five years ago. And if they’ve owned their homes longer than that, then compared to what they paid, they’ve already won the lottery! This shift is just a bump in the road that requires a shift in thinking.
Pre-covid, the median price in Santa Cruz was $850,000. Right now, the median sits at an incredible $1,350,000! It was only in August of 2020 that our housing market, riding the pendulum swing of a paradoxical covid economy, broke the million dollar mark for the first time.
So, in the last six years, the median price has shot up 40-50% and for a good portion of that time, most of us were hunkered down, sheltering in place, trying to stay safe. That was a heck of a pandemic stimulus check for not really doing very much. How can anyone feel too bad about having to give 5%-10% of that big windfall back?
This is all a huge win for homesellers and hopefully more of them will see it that way and choose to feel grateful instead of cursing their fates. Buyers certainly aren’t going to feel sorry for them! We all get the benefits of an up market and we all have to accept the fact that sometimes the market goes down (even if we conveniently forgot)!
Continuing the tough love…the truth is, sellers can no longer count on getting five offers after the first open house. Instead, they’re probably going to have to work harder just to get closer to their list price. Unfortunately though, sellers struggling to come to terms with “market adjustments” are often their own worst enemies.
Next Week: Making the right decisions when prices drop
