52% of Columbus Homes Are Dropping Their Price

The Sell for 1 Percent team breaks down a major shift in the local market, where 52% of Columbus Metro listings are now seeing price drops. With interest rates hovering around 7.5%, the crew reveals how a seller-paid 2-1 buydown can be a game-changing strategy, potentially saving a buyer over $500 a month on a $400,000 home. As the average days on market climbs past 70, this creates a unique window of opportunity for Columbus buyers to negotiate and for sellers to get creative with tools like buydowns to secure a deal.

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Full Transcript

Hello, everybody. Hello. Jaime Barlow with Self For 1 Percent.

It is September 25th, 2026. We’re coming to you live. Jody Vermillion joining us.

Jody’s giving us a YouTube strike with the music playing. We’re gonna have copyright lulls and everything else going off. And this is our theme song for today.

Jody, do you want to tell us why this might be the theme song today? Well, we did see a bit of a rate hike yesterday, and that could impact some folks that are buying. However, real estate is always good to invest in. You’re building wealth, and it’s always a cycle with rates, whereas they might rise up a little bit, but they’ll end up coming back down.

So you still want to not rent and buy a home and invest in yourself as opposed to getting freaked out by the rates. It’s still a great decision to buy. I agree, 110%.

Well, I think that the spin needs for people really to think about it. Jody, Dad, me, Jaime, you’re now entering this world. We’ve been there and done that.

You’re at the beginning of what is likely a rate hike cycle from the Fed. They’re not just gonna raise them once. It’s gonna go two and three and four more times.

You’re gonna wish that you didn’t wait to sell. You’re gonna wish that you didn’t wait to buy. Don’t give up the go.

Keep surfing the listing. Keep looking for your right buyer. And buyers, go pull the trigger.

You can always refi when rates come down, at the risk of sounding like Dad. You can always refi. I would seriously consider buying now at 7.5.

It’s gonna feel a lot better than when you buy at 8.25. Timing the market is kind of difficult to do. Just ask all those who have bought crypto or stocks or whatever.

Warren Buffett says, buy the S&P. He started buying it 40, 50 years ago. And every year it goes up.

But you’re gonna have some valleys. And so, same thing with rates. Rates are up right now.

But the neat thing about that is that rates drop. You can refinance. You’re not stuck for 30 years with what you would call a high interest rate.

Which actually, Jody, you can correct me if I’m wrong. But I think even at the current interest rate, which is around 7% or thereabouts, we’re still less than the 30-year average of what interest rates are. I think it’s around 7.5, 7.75.

So, still not bad. We just got ruined during COVID when you could get interest rates at 2.75%. I mean, that’s like going back to the 1980s when interest rates were 18% because of the S&L failures that were happening.

Interest rates jumped to 18%. My mom and dad had one of those at 16%. And it’s like, okay, well, it’s just the opposite extreme.

So, you could be at 18% or you could be at 2.75% or somewhere in between. And somewhere in between is pretty much what the rest of the world lives at. On the big difference between COVID times and today, during COVID, homes are selling in 24 to 48 hours with 63 offers, no inspections, covering appraisal gaps.

Right now, today, you find one that’s been sitting on the market for a little bit as a buyer, and that seller typically is willing to play ball and negotiate a little bit. And so, there is a divergence. I’ve been tracking it the last couple weeks.

We’re up on inventory the last two years about 54%. And the last two to three weeks, pending sales have been dropping quicker than what we normally see this time of year. I mean, the market’s been softening.

And then yesterday, this news that the bond market’s at the highest point since or the 10-year Treasury’s at the highest point since 2007, which those are years that I remember very fondly, back when I was slinging hud houses for $600. The market’s going to soften here as midterms come up. And Iran’s going to try and make this as painful for the president as possible, so that whoever is the next president thinks twice before they ever come close to touching Iran again.

So, this is going to be a fun time, fellas. We’re in for a fun time in real estate. Well, but I think it’s short term.

And, Jay, you brought up a good point, because after 28 years in this business, you’ve seen the ebbs and the flows. And, Jody, not to date you, but- I’m married. You can’t date me.

I’m sure that you’ve seen the same ebbs and flows during election cycles. Oh, for sure. There’s always a deer in the headlight, you know, where everybody just kind of pauses, because there’s so much mud.

I mean, I was watching the morning news this morning, and literally every ad was either John Husted or Sherrod Brown. I mean, and they were piled on top of each other. It was Sherrod Brown badmouthing Husted, Husted badmouthing Sherrod Brown, and then Sherrod Brown would come back.

I mean, they had the whole four or five-minute commercial break was just them. And we’re still six weeks away from the election. And my wife looked at me, and she goes, are we going to have to listen to this for the next- I said, no, because I’m on TiVo.

Beep. And I zip past that. Talk about date yourself.

No one says TiVo anymore, father. It’s a common term like Xerox. The first thing Jody says to me- The election cycle is something that happens, and so it’s going to be a natural slowdown.

We get on the other side of the election, the first Tuesday in November, there’s usually a little floodgate, because everybody’s figured out the world isn’t going to come to an end, like all the commercials are telling us right now. Right. The first thing Jody said to me, we were off camera, I got on and said, how are you doing with the interest rates? And she goes, we were here in 2023.

And we instantly started talking about 2-1 buy-downs and different strategies for buyers and sellers to compete. So, yeah, to your point, Jody’s been here before. We’ve been here before.

Stay calm. Don’t forget to breathe. The sun will come up tomorrow.

Be happy. As long as Ohio State has a balanced offensive attack, everything will be okay. Well, it could create opportunity, too.

I mean, it’s natural for some buyers to pull back. That’s just their natural reaction is to pull back. Oh, I’m going to wait.

But as you guys know, rents are not cheap. I mean, rents keep going up. I just had someone I pre-qualified the other day.

He’s paying $3,200 a month in rent. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah, and he’s been paying it for six years, believe it or not. So he has now, I think, four children, needs a lot of space in a certain school district, that sort of thing.

So he kind of locked into kind of a corporate type of lease. But that’s high even in the past five years. And rents are just going up.

Our population is going up. And it could be a good time to get out there and actually find a property where everyone’s pulling back for a minute. So really important to update your pre-approvals.

I was telling Jaime when we popped on here before we went live is double check with your people. Make sure their pre-approvals are up to date because it can impact how much they qualify for. So we want to make sure that they’re on point.

It’s a super good point. We talk about it, I think, pretty regularly, is that your guy that’s paid $3,200 a month for four years, so he’s paid $36,000 a year in rent for four years. So he’s over $100,000 in rent.

$153,000. And has no equity. Right.

Where beyond just the equity, then he’s also making a good living. So he needs tax write-offs. So you get your property taxes.

You get your interest write-off. I mean, there’s so many more benefits to owning than doing the rental game. And so even if you’re going to pay because you’re up a half a point, and, you know, on a $400,000 house, what’s that work out to? Like, you know, 70, 80 bucks, 90 bucks a month.

But you get that money back if you’re paying $10,000 a year in property taxes. You get the money back. So as my dad used to say, and Jaysen, I think, now has picked up on it, you know, you’re bending down to pick up nickels while you’re losing the dimes.

And it’s never a bad time to buy, but there are emotional sets like this election cycle. I think this is going to be a bad one here in Ohio because it’s a highly contested race all the way through, you know, from the Senator to the governor. I mean, it’s just one negative ad after another and it impacts your psyche.

I mean, there’s no way that it doesn’t. And I just, I think it’s going to be slow for the next month. So, you know, we’re prepping our sellers, you know, this is something that happens every couple of years and now it’s even worse because we’re in a highly contested races.

I think you’re, I think the market’s going to slow, but then I think also once you get beyond, like I said earlier, I think there’s going to be a little floodgate that opens up and, and it’d be nice. So save your money. I hope so.

You know, but it could be worse. It could be, things could get worse too. So don’t wait, don’t wait.

Buy now. Call Jody, call Jaime, buy now. And educate your sellers on the 2-1 buy down as well, just because it’s, some don’t understand how that works.

The difference between, you know, let’s say it’s seven and a half, you know, all the way down to five and a half to start, then six and a half and the spread in between. And those are the dollars that become seller paid closing costs. Right, right.

Yep. Yeah, I just had a seller who is friends with a mortgage person. And it’s a $250,000 house over in Hilliard.

The 2-1 buy down on for the first year is a savings of over $600 a month. And then the second year is over $300 a month. So, you know, instead of saying, oh, take $10,000 off the price, you can say, give me the 2-1 buy down.

And then the buyer actually is going to save, you know, almost twice that amount. And then if rates drop, you refinance. And then with the 2-1 buy down, you can tell me if I’m right or not, Jody.

But with the 2-1 buy down, the seller is actually funding that. And if you happen in like six months, your situation changes. Or interest rates drop to 2.5% again.

You can refinance. And whatever money is still left in that fund that hasn’t been used for interest payments, the buyer then gets to keep. So, I mean, it’s like a win-win-win.

Yeah. It’s a good day. And I think, you know, I think you don’t always hear about it all the time is because when it’s a seller’s market, you know, they’re not necessarily paying seller paid closing costs and that sort of thing.

But now that we’ve kind of changed the tune a little bit and rates have come up a little bit, it’s going to be a strategy. It’s going to be a strategy for the seller to sell and for the buyer to get excited about buying. Well, it’s also a little complicated.

You know, it’s not like super simple. But I think the simplification is is that in the first year, you’re going to save 2% on your interest rate, depending on the price on the $250,000 house. It was like $330 per point per 1% drop.

So it’s 660 on a 200. So if you’re dealing on a $400,000 house, you’re going to be, you know, up in the four to $500 per point. And I say it just is anything new is always scary.

And then I think there’s a lot of misconception because of what happened with the foreclosure crisis and the arms, you know, that created I think a lot of problems and people like, Oh, well, you know, you don’t want to get into that situation. You end up losing your house. So just, yeah.

The last time that arms had this much action was back in 2023 when rates were up this high. They’re about 9% of the market right now. Yeah.

Yeah. Jaime, what do you think? I was going to say Jaime on the buyer’s side, you think Jaime, are they thinking about the two ones or what do you know? I mean, I think where it gets a little convoluted buyers do pull back. And I don’t think it’s a strategy, a ton of people are taking advantage of.

And so I think that’s where it’s important. You have somebody that understands it and even knows it’s available to be able to talk to you about it and tell you. So, I mean, on the listing side, I think it’s good to, you know, probably put that info on the listing so buyers can see it and then ask their agent, Hey, what, what is this? What does this mean? But I’m not seeing a ton of it.

It’s kind of, you know, a new Dawn where that, you know, needs to be a new strategy, I think for people. So I’m not seeing a ton of it on the buy side. But I, it is a, I think a good option at this point in time.

Definitely. And I think sellers are definitely open to paying that those, you know, two one closing costs to get a deal done. I think there’s a lot of, a lot of sellers that are negotiable right now that are going to be flexible.

Right. Sorry, I cut you off there, Jody. Oh, that’s okay.

I was just going to say that you’re really not hearing about it right now. I mean, you do on the build new build side, you know, you hear about that but you’re not hearing about it right now. Cause this rate hike just happened.

So I think now’s the time to get ahead of it. And you guys do a ton of listings with your strategy. So I agree with you.

A hundred is start getting the word out there. And of course, aligning with a lender who knows how to explain it properly. You know, two one buy down is going to be certainly attractive for those that understand how, you know, what’s going to happen in the economy with without the war unfolds and, and how inflation unfolds and how we continue in the next few years, you know? Well, it’s very logical, you know, when things kind of like click and make sense to me, it’s like, yeah, I think it makes all the sense in the world to have the seller do the two one buy down, then to get $5,000 in closing costs.

And, you know, you see the samples that reducing the, the price on a $250,000 house by 5,000 bucks is going to save you about 30 bucks, 40 bucks a month on your house payment. But to get the seller to do the two one buy down, it’s going to save you $600 a month, you know, 7,200 for the first year, 3,600 on the next year, over $10,000 if it goes full term, that makes sense to me versus $40 a month. That’s $480 a first year, $960 total for two years versus 10 grand.

So to me, the numbers make sense. BDB PDP. This coming across my desk.

We have 6,485 listings. Dave Barlow. Where is my dollar? I mean, how long is that bet supposed to go on? Where’s my dollar? Well, how long was the bet? I need to go back.

I mean, we spent over 6,000 listings. Well, I mean, eventually sometime in the future, it’s going to be at 10,000 listings, but I think that it was next year, 10 years from now. So how long does the bet go? Father? I think that we’ll check your notes where you log everything.

I thought that it were Azure AI models to kick it out to you. I thought it was this year was the bet. This year? The whole year? Yeah, that we get over 6,000 listings this year.

Okay. Now, I will say it didn’t happen the way I thought it would. I wasn’t counting on a war with Iran and hot inflation, but here we are.

We’re above 6,000 listings. In the last week, we’ve had 930 new listings at the market. 500 have gone into contract, and over 1,000 have dropped price.

We have more price drops than we do new listings. The Columbus Metro is at 52% of listings are dropping price, which we’ve not been up that high. Gosh, I don’t even know how long.

I mean. Ever. I’m sure not ever.

I’m sure back when you had like 50,000 listings in 2007 and 2008 that people were cutting price back then too. Well, you didn’t have 24,000 people cutting price. It’s interesting to look at all this.

It is. A week ago, we had 1,000 that went into contract. Well, that’s been cut in half in just one week.

And again, I think that my sellers, and I know some watch these videos or listen to them. We all feel it. The conversations I’m having with my clients is it’s not you.

You’re not the only house in the city right now that is slow on showings. And so now price fixes that. The example me and dad have always done, not to be a total smart aleck, but if we list it for $100,000, do you think it will sell? Well, of course.

So price ultimately will sell things, but it’s not just a you issue where your house stinks, you’re not properly, and you’re way overpriced. That’s not necessarily the case right now. The days on market, the average is over 70 now.

The median is pushing up to 50. We’re at 49 days for median in the current climate. So you’re feeling the market kind of shift in real time.

Mid-August, this was a totally different market. I mean, it popped. There was a week there where pending surged, things were good, and then all of a sudden things started to change pretty quickly.

So that’s your seller update for the week. This week is kind of a lull week, so I’ll be interested to see as we go into the last weekend of the month, and then what, next Wednesday is the last day of the month? Yep, then that next weekend will be that. Jay, you’ve been doing this long enough, and Jody, you haven’t been doing it as long as me because you’re much younger than me, but we’ve seen the trend towards the end of the month, you see more contracts written.

So I would suspect that your number, I’d be interested to see what the number is next week as to contracts in the last seven days, if that popped a little bit because of the last weekend and being the tail end of the month. So we’ll hope. If it doesn’t, then I think our theory about the election and the deer in the headlight, and I also think with the higher interest rates, buyers are just, they’re pickier.

They’re just, they’re pickier. I have a client, she’s looking and needs to sell a house, and so we’re thinking home sale contingency, and the one seller we talked to yesterday, no, we’re not interested in home sale contingency. And it’s like, well, we’ll be back in about three weeks when the house sits, because if you think it’s going to fly off the market, they’re just not doing that right now.

We talked to Jody, and we come up with a plan that she can use the equity in her home to be able to purchase, which I think is a better plan anyways because the honest answer is, if you’re going in non-contingent, you have a lot more negotiating power. We can drive price down. But if you’re asking somebody to keep their house off the market while you try to sell yours, I think they’re going to want closer to their asking price.

So there’s things that go along with that as well. Yeah, the bridge option is definitely attractive for folks that have equity in their property. Yeah, I’d love to talk to anybody who wants to learn more about that.

But I wanted to give you some information on the 2-1 buy-down too. I just took a sales price of $400,000. And so some people don’t understand what a 2-1 buy-down is.

It’s the first year, the rate is lower by two points, the second year by one point, and the final year by market rate. So basically the difference between on a $400,000 deal, we’ll say 7.5 to 5.5 is $500 a month. The difference of 7.5 to 6.5 is $256 a month.

You times that by 12, and the total that we would have to ask from the seller is $9,072. The maximum you can get on a conventional loan and seller-paid closing cost is 3%, which is actually $12,000. So it’s less than the full 3% from the seller for the 2-1 buy-down.

The buyer can’t pay for the 2-1 buy-down. It has to come from the seller. So it’s definitely doable.

It’s just a matter of coaching up the seller and the buyer. Right, and so instead of beating the seller up on price, you come in, give them a price that they’re happy with, and then you take the money you’re trying to negotiate as a credit at closing, and then the seller will pay for your rate, or your payment basically would be $600 off the first year, whatever it was, $550. And then the second year, $250.

And so that’s money that’s real money back in your pocket. So it’s really not a bad way to play things as a buyer. Plus the write-off of your property taxes, plus the write-off of that interest, and that’s all real money back into your pocket versus giving it to your landlord.

I mean, that’s, to me, it’s really a no-brainer, but it’s amazing. A lot of these people, too, Dad, are not going from rentals to buying. I mean, a lot of these guys are having to sell their house, give up a 3% interest rate to go buy something different.

And so it’s how do you minimize your payment as you give up the 3% rate. And those people have had some sort of life change, whether it’s as Jody’s client, you’ve got four kids now, or you’ve got a job change, or there’s a divorce, or it’s probate. It could be a million different things.

But that’s what keeps the market moving is those sellers become buyers, and that’s what keeps everything kind of churning. Yeah, but let me ask you this, Jay, and you do more listings than I do right now. Are most of your sellers in that type of situation? I don’t have many sellers that are just selling to move up.

They’re selling because something’s going on that’s forcing them to sell or pushing them to sell. It’s not like a normal market two, three years ago, a year ago. Somebody would just, hey, I need a bigger house, or I want to live in a better neighborhood, or whatever it may be.

They would sell, move up from a two-bedroom condo to a four-bedroom home. I don’t see a lot of that in today’s market. I see more sellers.

There’s a reason that’s really pushing it along. You agree? Disagree, Jay? Quiet? I don’t really ask that question a whole lot, to be honest. You don’t know why your sellers are selling? No, but I just say sign here, and let’s go.

When do you want photos scheduled? I mean, a lot of it’s life change. It’s a million different things. I don’t like when you play your game of questions with me.

No, I’m curious because you’ve got more listings than me right now. Also, you have a bigger pool. I mean, what do you see? Jaime, help me.

Jaime! I have some sellers that have already downsized. I have some sellers that are buying and then downsized, but I’d say the vast majority are not buying something local at the moment, whether they’re upgrading or downsizing, or they’re moving out of state. There’s a lot of different variables.

As I go through my listings in my head, there’s an injury, and I had to move to a one-story. There’s a life change, and I need to get to some of my equity. There’s a lot of, like Jaime’s saying, people moving for jobs.

I don’t know that I ever was in a market, other than when rates were 2% and people just moved for fun. I mean, moving is, I tell all my clients, this is like the worst thing ever, and I’m sorry to have to meet you this way. I’m a pretty cool dude.

You have to show your house and pack up all your crap, and you got to declutter and purge everything. It sucks. Moving is the worst.

Nobody wants to do it. That’s why there’s this whole market for people that, you know, we’ll pay cash to your house, and you’ll get $0.65 on the dollar and get totally ripped off, but hey, you don’t have to show it, and we’ll take all your crap in it. I don’t know.

Like I said, I zoned out half of your question, too. As I normally do. You guys have a lot of listings.

What do you do to help make it easier for sellers? What do you provide for them to make the move easier? Well, I mean, whatever they really need. I mean, some people kind of have a plan, but we’ve got all kinds of resources, contacts. Again, it depends on your situation.

If you’re looking to, if you’re a downsizer and you’re older and you’re moving into assisted living or going to a one-story or somebody that’s at probate, we’ve got movers. We’ve got people that do auctions, tax sales. Really, probably anything that you could possibly need, it’s in our Rolodex.

So you even provide handymen that possibly could do a repair if it was required or needed, that sort of thing? Yep. Handymen from the boys on the south side of Columbus that are the best price in town up to licensed, bonded, insured, the real deal Holyfield types. You know, whatever you need, we’ve got those people.

I got a guy. Yep. And what if they don’t have the money to pay for it right then? How do you coach them through that? We send them to Jody.

She’s got a checkbook. Just call her. She’s got lots of money.

But seriously, is there ever a time that, let’s say it is someone that needs to size down or let’s say they need to go to assisted living and let’s say there are just a few repairs or you need to tighten up the property to actually get it sold at a higher level. Do you ever offer repairs and have it fund the contractor at closing? I have done that with people, but not every contractor is in a position to do that either. So it depends on who you’re hiring and also how much we’re talking.

Typically on stuff like that, I start pushing them towards, thinking about home equity lines, touch your equity and only pay on what you borrow and then you can pay it back at closing. So it’s things along those lines. The bridge loan that we do for folks offer that as well.

So there’s of course the fee to do the bridge loan. I explain all of that to the buyer, but there’s also the option that you don’t have to use all of the funds for down payment for the new purchase to eliminate that liability from your current mortgage. Pretty cool about that program.

So that’s where you and I can get along. We always get along. Don’t worry.

Be happy. Don’t worry about interest rates. Just buy and sell the houses.

Call Dave, call Jaime, call Jody. Do you guys got anything else to add? Jaime, you got anything to say? All good. I think we covered all bases.

He’s the real estate sponge. I’m just a company mushroom. No one tells me anything.

I’m just on a need to know basis. I sit in the dark. That’s how I do mortgages.

Only tell me what you want to tell me. Tell me what I need to know. The big takeaway this week is, and Dad, you made a good point that it is a low week.

It’s the middle of the month. There are some weird external factors that don’t come with every election year, such as inflation, gas prices suck. We didn’t talk about Dad’s favorite topic.

Gas prices, inflation is coming in hot. The biggest thing that allows the Fed to raise rates also is that the job market has improved a lot from last year. The job market is pretty solid.

Things really aren’t as bad as what you’re led to believe they are from the news. It’s also time to get smarter and to have a little bit of a strategy whether you’re buying or selling and how to pull this off. That’s where we all come in.

If you’re looking to get a loan, Jody’s got Bridge Loan. She’s got loans give you free money so you can make repairs to your house. Give Jody a call.

As rates go up, like she said, it’s going to change what your payment looks like. Get out in front of that curve. Yeah, and strategy.

It’s going to change your strategy. You’ve got to be working with people that know how to help you come up with that strategy to get what you want. And Jaime is the master negotiator.

He just comes in and beats sellers over the head with low prices, multiple inspections, all kinds of crazy stuff. And lots of charm. Lots of charm, Jaime.

Give Jaime a call if you’re trying to buy. If you want to complain about me, call Dad because I don’t want to hear it. Don’t call me.

Call Dave. He loves to hear it. And when you call Dave to complain about Jaysen, tell him he owes me a dollar and that Nostradamus was right.

We’re over 6,000 listings. And if you need to sell, give me a shout. We’ll put together a comprehensive game plan.

We’ll get your house sold for the most amount of money as quick as we can. But again, you’ve got to adjust your expectations. Unless you want to just give it away, it’s not going to sell on the opening weekend right now.

You’re heading into a seasonally depressed time that happens every year. You layer that with election cycles, which slow things down every couple years, layered with rates are now going up, layered with World War III is about to start, right, Jaime? There’s all kinds of things that are happening. Can I say one thing? Yeah, Father, please.

The weird thing is, with all this negativity, we’re still selling houses. We’re still fulfilling people’s dreams. It’s not all doom and gloom.

Where’s your song at, Jody? Put one in the contract yesterday, which was a very nice day for the seller. It is. And you, too, can be next.

So don’t worry. Be happy. There you go.

Have a good one, guys. Thanks for watching. Like and subscribe.

Leave a comment. We’ll catch you next week. The world turns.

So don’t worry. Be happy. I like it.