Published October 1, 2026 in Market Update

Homes Took 5 More Days to Sell From July to September

By Laurie Dick

Real estate, LLWashCntyQ32026

July was a good month to sell in the St. Croix Valley. The typical home found a buyer in 23 days, sold for every dollar it first asked, and the numbers held steady. I pulled the data through September 29, 2026, and the story from July to September is worth paying attention to if you are thinking about listing.

By September, homes were sitting longer and sellers were cutting prices to move them

From July to August, the typical days to sell jumped from 23 to 29. September held at 28. That is not a crisis, but it is a shift. The typical home that sold in July got every dollar it first asked. By September, the typical home sold for 99.1% of its first price.

The bigger signal is what is sitting on the market right now. There are 970 homes for sale, and 56.3% of them have already cut their price. The typical cut is $25,000. The biggest single cut is $800,000. More than half the homes for sale today started at a price the market would not pay.

The longer a home sat, the more the seller gave up

The market still has 2.7 months of supply, which technically favors sellers. But that number hides something. Of the 970 homes for sale, more than half already tried a higher price and it did not work. Waiting and then cutting is not the same as pricing right from the start.

The data on how long it takes to sell makes this plain. The typical home that found a buyer in the first month sold for 100% of its first asking price, in just 14 days. The typical home that took into the second month got 97.2% of its first price. Homes that stretched into the third month typically got 95%. Every month a home sits, sellers give up more ground on price.

It keeps going from there. The typical home that sold in month four got 94.1% of its first asking price. The ones that took five or six months got 92.6%. That is a gap of 7.4 percentage points between selling fast and selling slow. The lesson is not complicated: the market tells you what it will pay, and it tells you in the first few weeks. If offers are not coming, the price is the reason.

Price range matters too. The $350K to $450K range had the fewest homes give up without a sale, at 11.1% of that group. Under $350K had the most trouble, with 17.8% coming off the market without selling. If your home is priced under $350K, that is worth knowing before you list.

The $700K and up range is also worth watching. 15.8% of homes in that range came off the market with no sale. That group also saw the biggest gap between first asking price and what the home actually sold for, at 97.9% of the original ask for those that did sell. Pricing a higher-end home in the St. Croix Valley takes more precision right now, not less.

One more thing that surprised me: homes built before 1970 sold in just 17 days at the middle, and the typical one got 100% of its first asking price. Newer is not always faster. A well-priced older home in good shape can move as well as anything on the market.

What this means if you are selling or buying right now

If you are selling, the one thing this data says clearly is to price it right the first time. The typical home that found a buyer in month one got full price. The ones that sat and cut got less, sometimes a lot less. The typical home that sold in the $350K to $450K range took just 22 days and got 100% of what it first asked. That range is where the market is most active and most forgiving. If you are above or below that, you need a sharper number going in.

If you are buying, you have more choices than you did in July, and some of those choices come with motivated sellers. In August, 549 homes came on the market and 376 found a buyer, according to my data. That is 1.5 new listings for every new contract, which means supply is building slowly. Rates are not helping: the 30-year fixed averaged 7.03% as of September 24, 2026, up from 6.95% the week before and well above the 6.30% buyers saw a year ago, according to Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey. Homes that have already cut their price are worth a closer look right now.