The $5,000 You Won’t Drop Is Costing You $12,000

By Tina Heaney

Tina Heaney is a seasoned real estate professional and an American-Australian dual citizen with a rich international marketing background. Her extensive experience in global marketing has given her a unique ability to understand diverse needs and tailor solutions that resonate across different markets.

Here’s a mistake I watch sellers make over and over, and it’s an expensive one. They refuse to drop their price by five thousand dollars while the house sitting unsold quietly costs them twelve. They fixate on the number on the sign and miss the money leaking out the back door every single month.

I had a seller once where we got off on the wrong foot about price from the very start. The market was shifting toward buyers, and their home simply wasn’t moving. Months passed, and they would not lower the price, not even a little. So one day I asked a simple question: what are your carrying costs? The mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, the utilities, everything it takes just to keep owning the house you’re trying to sell. They added it up and told me, and I said, let me get this straight. You don’t want to drop your price by five thousand dollars, but holding onto this house has already cost you twelve thousand. That doesn’t make financial sense. You could see it land.

Carrying costs are real money, and they never stop. When your house sits, you keep paying the mortgage every month, plus property taxes, insurance, utilities, and upkeep. People treat those as simply the cost of living there, but the moment you’re trying to sell, every month you don’t sell is money spent for nothing. And here’s the trap: a price reduction feels like a loss because it’s one big visible number, while carrying costs don’t feel like anything, because they leak out slowly, a little at a time. Add them up over a few months and they very often dwarf the reduction you were fighting so hard to avoid. The slow leak almost always costs more than the one-time cut.

The market tells you when your price is wrong, and it does it quickly. If your home has been sitting with little activity, that isn’t bad luck or a bad market. It’s information, and the message is that the price is off. The longer you argue with that message, the more it costs you, both in carrying costs and in something subtler: a house that sits too long starts to look suspect to buyers. They begin to wonder what’s wrong with it, even when nothing is. So a stale listing can end up selling for less than it would have if it had been priced right from the beginning. Reacting quickly to what the market is telling you isn’t giving up, it’s the smartest and least expensive move you can make.

Wait too long, and the decision gets made for you. This is the part I most want you to hear, because I’ve watched it happen. I had another seller whose husband flatly refused to lower the price to where it needed to be. He wouldn’t budge. One day I was driving over to talk it through with them again, and on the way I passed a man on the side of the road hammering up for auction signs, for their property. I walked in and asked, so how does that price reduction look now? That’s the thing about waiting. The market doesn’t wait with you. Eventually it moves without you, and by then your options are far worse than a five thousand dollar adjustment would have been.

So if your home is on the market and it isn’t moving, please don’t dig in and wait it out. Do the math on what it’s actually costing you to hold the house, and listen to what the market is telling you. A smart, timely price adjustment almost always beats bleeding money for months and then being forced into a worse position anyway.

If you’re not sure whether your price is right, or you want someone who will tell you the truth even when it isn’t what you want to hear, that’s exactly what I do. Call or text me at 603-393-4605, email me at tina@heaney-homes.com, or visit heaneyhomes.kw.com.

Let’s make sure your home is priced to actually sell, not just to sit.