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Volume XXVI, Number XLVI | October 29, 2026
Six Months of Work, No Paycheck, and a Seller Who Blames You
Every real estate agent knows this: when homeowners sign a listing agreement, they aren't hoping we'll sell their home. They sign it knowing we will. The next chapter of their life is in our hands. The new job, the bigger yard, being closer to the grandkids: every goal tied to that move depends on us getting it done.
But think about what happens when the house doesn't sell. The seller pays for repairs, stages the house every morning and leaves work early for showings. Then, often six months later, the listing expires and the seller is back where they started, facing the cleaning, the showings and the waiting all over again, as if the last six months never happened. And when it expires, the seller rarely blames the price. They blame the agent.
If you work with sellers and buyers as a lender, title company or inspector, a listing that ends unsold is a closing that never happens.
I wanted to know how often that happens here. So I counted every existing home listed for sale in Leon and Wakulla counties that came off the market in the last three years, 11,893 listings, and sorted them by how they ended.
About 1 in 5 came off the market without selling. That's 2,361 listings that ended with the seller still owning the house.
That's the last three years. In 2010, more than half of listings failed. In 2021, just 1 in 10.
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What Decided the Outcome?
The listings that sold didn't just get lucky. Every listing enters the market with an initial asking price, and that price largely determines which side of the chart it lands on. Even many of the sellers who eventually sold learned that the hard way: showings slowed, price reductions began, and they found the right price months after they should have.
Every seller wants more for their home. That's natural. Nobody wants to give their house away. Our industry often answers that wish with a bad bargain: take the listing at the seller's price and plan to talk it down later. That's how a listing turns into six months of work with no paycheck.
The agents who get paid do the harder thing at the listing appointment. They acknowledge how the seller feels, explain that every past seller felt the same way, and show them that the road to more money runs through the right price, not a higher one.
We don't take listings in hopes of getting paid. We price them to sell, which gets our sellers moving and gets us paid.
When the market shifts, the price that worked last year no longer works. That's why I send you these numbers every week: so you see the shift before your next listing appointment, not after your next listing expires.
Know a seller about to list? Forward this to them.
Know someone moving or thinking about it?
Forward this issue, or send them this link to sign up: www.manausa.com/newsletter
Until later,
Joe Manausa MBA
Joe Manausa Team at Xcellence Realty
P.S. Your buyers will ask about rates. Mortgage rates are back to normal, but the payment isn't. Here's an article you can send them →
Note: The chart counts every existing-home listing in Leon and Wakulla counties that ended Oct 21, 2023 to Oct 20, 2026, with bank sales, short sales and auctions excluded. A home that came back on the market within 90 days counts as one listing. Source: the Tallahassee Multiple Listing Service (MLS).