For years, selling a home almost anywhere meant immediate interest from buyers, quick closings, and tidy profits. But now in many parts of the country, things are slowing down.
That’s forcing a harsh truth on pandemic-era homebuyers who are now looking to move: Selling in the era of 6.8% mortgage rates and slowing home price appreciation can be far more difficult than it was just a few years ago. Many owners, especially those who bought in more recent years, will wind up taking losses or barely breaking even on their purchases.
Today’s dynamics aren’t a harbinger of a market crash, but they are something of a return to how home buying and selling looked before years of ultra-low mortgage rates and pandemic-driven life changes turbocharged the housing market. The general rule that it takes at least five, and sometimes closer to 10, years to break even on a home purchase is back, leaving some would-be sellers facing tough financial decisions.
Outside of Boston, Burlington, Mass.-based broker Susan Kadilak has long cautioned sellers who have been in their homes for less than two years to watch out for potential capital gains taxes on quick profits. But while her market is still relatively hot, homes aren’t appreciating as quickly, leaving more of those clients likely to roughly break even on their sales.
“Obviously, the hope is always to make some sort of profit when you hold real estate for a year or longer, but it doesn’t always happen, especially as interest rates have gone up and the market appreciation has moved on down,” Kadilak said.
Read more: Is it a buyer’s market or seller’s market? How to tell the difference.
Most home sellers stay put long enough to profit on their purchases. In recent years, the median duration of homeownership has been 12 to 13 years. But a chunk of more recent buyers — especially those who rushed to purchase during the low interest rate boom of 2020 and 2021 — are now looking to sell as their needs change. A survey of 1,000 first-time home sellers by real estate firm Opendoor released in March found that 91% said pandemic buying mistakes influenced their decision to sell now.
Leighann Miko, the founder of Equalis Financial, a fee-only financial planning firm, has a number of clients contemplating what to do with pandemic-era purchases that no longer fit their needs.
“People were buying homes that weren’t necessarily in alignment with where they wanted to be long-term, but it made sense in the moment for what was available,” Miko said. She advises clients considering selling now to consider not just their potential profit or loss, but also their values and where they envision living their ideal life.
“We get so tied up in the financial ramifications of a decision that we forget the intangibles,” she added.
How sellers are faring now depends on where they’re located. Home prices have fallen sharply from pandemic highs in Austin, Texas, and parts of Florida. In many other cities, they’re still rising, but at a slower rate of roughly 4% annually, instead of the double-digit increases that were common a few years back. After factoring in closing costs and agent fees, many 2025 sellers who bought in recent years don’t walk away with major gains.
Read more: Is it a good time to sell your house?
In Silicon Valley, Realtor Michael Reyes has listed several condos for sellers who ended up taking outright losses, even as tech salaries have helped keep the market for single-family homes among the hottest in the country.
In one recent deal, a seller paid $715,000 in 2021 for a two-bedroom unit in San Jose, Calif. It was in a desirable neighborhood and came with an attached garage, a rarity. When it went up for sale this year, it garnered 16 offers, but the highest was for just $670,000.
Another three-bedrooom townhome that fetched just over $1 million in 2022 received nine offers when it was listed this year. The highest was for $930,000.
“They’re getting slaughtered,” Reyes said of the sellers. “Those buyers are saying, ‘I’d rather rent in this nice apartment complex with three beds, and it’ll be cheaper than that two-bed condo at a 7% interest rate and another $500 HOA on top of that.”
Read more: How to sell a house fast
Abbey Beck, 24, and her husband purchased a $235,000 home in Lakeland, Fla., in 2023 after finding homeownership costs would be similar to renting. They had planned to stay long-term, but just over a year later, they decided to sell after realizing they weren’t happy in the mid-sized city, and Beck was offered a job 90 minutes away that nearly doubled her salary.
Prices had risen in Lakeland, and they sold their home quickly for $259,000, $24,000 more than they paid. But after factoring in fees from the sale, the $13,000 in closing costs they paid in 2023, and minor improvements they made in their first year of homeownership, they didn’t quite break even.
“We knew that you don’t make money on houses unless you’re there for quite a while,” Beck said. “We weren’t really blindsided, it’s just different seeing it really happen to you than reading it.”
They’re now renters in Orlando and plan on continuing to rent until they’re ready to commit to one location, potentially five to eight years down the road. Meanwhile, Beck is setting aside some of her new higher earnings to fund a larger down payment in the future.
Miko, the financial adviser, also has personal experience in the arena. Seeking to escape Los Angeles during the pandemic, she and her wife bought a home in Portland, Ore., in 2020 and poured money into renovations with the plan to stay for a decade. But a few years later, they stumbled upon what Miko described as their dream home — a mid-century modern by Robert Rummer, a prominent local builder — and bought it.
Hesitant to give up the sub-3% interest rate on their first home, they tried their hand at landlording before ultimately deciding to sell this year. After renovations, they lost money. But Miko still thinks it was the right decision.
“We ultimately sold it at a pretty significant loss, but it was for the greater good in the end,” she said. “If I could paint a picture of my ideal house, this was it.”
Claire Boston is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance.
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