Fewer Showings, But MORE Pending Sales?

The Sell for 1 Percent team breaks down the latest Central Ohio market dynamics, where inventory has climbed to 5,438 active and coming soon homes. Despite this increase, the market has more homes in contract right now than at any point in the last three years. The key insight is that while overall showings are down, the buyers who are looking are far more serious — they want a finished, move-in-ready product and aren’t just kicking tires. For Columbus sellers, this means pricing correctly from day one is critical, as the old myth that a buyer will simply ‘make a lower offer’ on an overpriced home isn’t holding true.

Full Transcript

Hey there, everyone. Jaime with Self for 1 Percent Realtors, joined, as usual, by the gang. Head broker Dave Barlow and Jaysen Barlow.

And we are joined up here with Rich Cercone at Highlands Mortgage. It is, what is it, June 25th, 2026. Yeah, wrapping up June here.

I wanted to… How’s the transition going there at Highlands Mortgage? You still dealing with two different laptops and two different phones and two different identities? I am to some extent, yeah. It’s not easy.

They still haven’t given you a shirt yet? No shirt. I think I’ve got to close a few more loans before I get a shirt. But they gave you a laptop.

They gave you a $5,000 laptop but can’t give you a $30 shirt. Exactly. You got to buy those at the Highlands store.

They’re at a discount price, though. Can I get one? Yeah, for a discounted price. Oh, boy.

You can wear it proudly. I would. I would.

I would go into the local tavern wearing my Highlands shirt and pass out my fake business cards that I’m Rich Cercone. Call me. There you go.

Well, the problem would be I’d start creating chaos and then they would be calling you. Hey, they said the interest rates are 2.5%. That guy at the bar told me that.

Yeah, the guy at the bar talking about gas prices. And top-tier gas was $2.50. Yeah.

Hang out free gas cards. Just call this number. You’ll get it.

Ring, ring, ring. Hello? Is Rich there, please? I’m looking for my card. There you go.

I met you at the bar Friday night. You did. And what did that guy look like? Well, he’s kind of bald.

He’s bald. That’s me. He had a Highlands shirt on.

You guys are having a lot of fun, huh? Then you would know the ruse was up because you don’t own a Highlands shirt. Oh, boy. Let’s get some serious stuff here going.

If you guys could be serious for a few minutes, that’d be great. Sorry. It’s the magic kicking in.

You guys are going to have to bear with us. Yeah, there you go. Reminiscing old age.

It all happens. By next week, we’ll forget it all. You want to re-intro or do we want to just take off from here? No, this is good stuff.

This is what dad hopes for. So, the short story is… We are going crazy right now. Millions of views.

My gosh. As of yesterday, rates were still mid-6s, 6.6, maybe 6.7, maybe 6.3, if you’ve got the perfect scenario. So, we’re not seeing major changes in interest rates, but we did get a number this morning, which I had never heard this number.

I had never heard this inflation report, so they might be making things up as they go along now. I have to read it because I’ve never heard of it before, but it’s called the Poor Personal Consumption Expenditure Price. Apparently, that number was at expectations, and even though it’s higher than it normally is, it was what the market expected.

The 10-year Treasury is rallying today. Yesterday, we were in the 440s, mid-440s, and now we’re at 436 this morning, last time I looked. So, we may see a little bit of a relief in mortgage rates.

I’m not saying they’re going to the 5s, but we might be pushing more towards 6.5 or less number. Again, I don’t know because rates are just coming out right now. I haven’t looked those up.

It was still rich before the Iran conflict. That sounds like where it was. No, we actually, at some point earlier this year, got under 4% at one point.

I’m sorry, I’m wrong about that, but it was in the 14s or something. Yeah, it says 4.17, so you’re right, 14s. And the mortgage rates at that point were 5.99 in most cases.

They may be a little higher, maybe 6, 6.1 depending on your circumstance, maybe 5.875. That was right before the conflict, and boom, everything just went back up again. We’ll have to see what the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding, does for the oil markets and inflation, and whether this is enough to bring the rates down.

Kevin Warsh decides to acquiesce to President Trump’s demand for lower interest rates. We could see something like that, but the markets are not predicting that right now. They are not predicting a Fed rate cut this year.

It’s going to be an interesting time. As we’ve seen before, when they cut rates, sometimes mortgage rates go up. Right, you never know.

It depends what the sentiment is beyond that rate cut or that rate increase, what happens with the mortgage rates. I think you’ll see, and I think a week or two ago, Rich, you thought maybe we would see a 7 in front of the interest rate before we would see a 5, I think was the comment. I think that as this thing gets wrapped up and as we’re heading towards those midterms in November, it becomes a little more emphasized that we’ve got to get this economy on track.

Otherwise, it’s going to be a bloodbath in November. I think you’re going to see gas prices back below 3. I think you’ll see interest rates back below 6.

Inflation will come back down as a result of gas prices. That’s the big push right now is gases creating inflation. That was the big complaint in the previous administration.

When you’re paying $4.50, $5 a gallon, people aren’t going to put up with that. I’m hopeful. That’s what we’re going to see.

That’s my prediction. We’ll come back here on June 25th. You make a lot of predictions.

I don’t think we track any of them. I track them all. Okay.

I’m correct 98.8% of the time. He’s got it on a spreadsheet. Can anyone imagine working with Dave for 21 years? How many years of my life have been lost? Why do you keep coming back? I’m going to die so young.

Not before your time, though. On June 25th, I’m making a prediction. We’ll see gas below 3 and interest rates below 6.

By when? I think definitely by the time you get to October 1st. That’s when things are going to be really heating up for the November election. The first Tuesday of November, whatever that date is.

Usually gas comes down like that for elections. You get all this smoke and mirrors. You may not be wrong about that one.

I think they’re going to be pushing it really hard. They’ve got to get those McDonald’s prices down. You were talking about that.

They never come down. Once they’re up, they don’t come down. I don’t know about that.

Their dollar menu was invented. That was the greatest thing ever. There is no dollar menu now.

Now it’s buy two for three. Then you may see the dollar menu come back. Okay.

The hamburger could be a little smaller, be like White Castle size. Yeah, like the Doritos. Half the bag is air and it’s $8.

That’s my complaint. They say family size, party size, and they’re like normal size bags. And not for the normal size family anymore.

It’s crazy. Although I did take a picture of a bag of Doritos the other day. I think a couple Sundays ago I had those for $4.69.

It was on special. After the batting cage last night, Jacks and my son wanted Taco Bell. He got two Taco Supremes for $6.

You used to be able to get a personal pizza, a cookie, and a drink for $5. And now that gets me a bag of Doritos. Well, you got a whole meal for that.

You got a whole meal for that, Jerry. I remember the 5 for $5 at Wendy’s. And now it gets me a bag of Doritos.

Barely. That will kill you with all the ingredients that are in it. Well, it’s all part of the inflation stuff.

And I think that’s where things kind of went left to center for the previous administration. A big segment. I don’t even know what the segment is.

Is it 20% of the population is on some sort of, and this is an old term, food stamps, government assistance? I have no idea. You can say it was the previous administration, but in all honesty, this goes back to COVID. You can’t print $9 trillion and not have inflation happen.

It’s just not going to happen. My point being is that in the last election, people were really feeling, and Jay, you and I have talked about, for the most part, we think the population is pretty fat and happy. And so you’re not going to rise up because things are okay.

But when you have Doritos going to $7, $8 for a bag, like you said, it’s half full. But my government check is not increasing by the same amount. I can’t buy what I used to buy a year ago or six months ago.

That’s where I think the real pressure happened. And so that’s why I think that there’s going to be a very concentrated effort over the next three, four, five months. I mean, here we are, June 25th.

It’s crazy. I agree with what you’re saying. It was January 1st, like a week ago, wasn’t it? I mean, that’s how fast this year has flown by for me.

We’re halfway through the year. Well, the older you get, that tends to happen. So I’m sure time just flies for you and Rich.

It feels like a day and a half and it’s June 30th. Yeah, yeah. I won’t get into the TikTok I saw about it, but basically it was like as you get older.

But let me get into it. The daily things you just you don’t even think about. And that’s why time goes faster.

So, you know, it’s talking about you got like one of the things I just saw, Rich, start brushing your teeth with your left hand. Because it makes your brain work differently. He frees for everybody else.

Well, everybody’s right handed. So, you know, I didn’t Dave, you froze up and we didn’t hear you. Oh, boy.

Here we go again. Here we go again. You’re all frozen.

Oh, it’s sinking back up. Am I coming back in? I think you were saying brush your teeth with your left hand. Just so that if you ever if you ever use your right hand, you’ll be able to still brush your teeth.

That applies to something else when you go to the bathroom, too, by the way. You generate new neuron pathways in your brain if you switch hands. And so if you’ve been brushing your teeth with your right hand, you just do it automatically.

It’s muscle memory. Jaime, you guys know about that with sports. Try brushing your teeth with your left hand.

I use both hands when I brush my teeth. It’s a mess. No, you can’t do it.

I use both hands. You can’t do it because you’re used to obviously with your right hand. But now you you’ll sit there and you think about it.

And it’s supposed to open up new neuron pathways in your brain. It makes your brain more flexible. I think I’m going to go do that as soon as we hang up.

I think you guys need to do that and get toothpaste all over everything. That’s the problem. Neuroplasticity.

I brush my teeth in the shower, which by the way, that’s the real move is brush your teeth in the shower. With your left hand or right? So I got like one arm up with water, brush, switch, brush. I’m using both hands all the time brushing.

Well, that’s why I’m normally making my brain more elastic and plastic. Yeah, that’s why you’re so fleet of foot. Yep, yep.

All right. And you got to quit watching this pseudoscience on tech. I think that the it’s a real problem for the elder generation that they believe everything on the Internet.

Well, you know, as soon as they throw up the little sign that I am a neuroscientist. Well, then I’m I’m in. Yep, yep.

And that’s a perfect segue. I’m a real estate professional. There is.

And we got five thousand four hundred and thirty eight homes active and coming soon on the MLS. So the inventory continues to climb. We have, again, more pending home sales this week than we’ve had.

I mean, by a substantial amount compared to the last two years, three years. We’ve never had more pending home sales, more homes in contract than we have right now in the central Ohio market. And showings are still trailing the last two years.

So we have less showings in the market overall on but more homes under contract. And so we typically when we like list homes and like the quote unquote off season. And I say that because December’s actually outpaced the spring market the last two years.

And that’s largely due to interest rates and things that are happening. Normally in on the off market off season, we tell sellers, hey, you’re going to have less showings. But if you’re out here in the snow, in the cold, in the dark, looking at houses, you’re serious.

And that’s what’s happening right now. There really aren’t very many tire kickers that are just looking for fun. The ones that are looking, there’s less in number, but they’re serious and they’re pulling the trigger.

And so really good time to be a seller on the market. Prices are down a little bit compared to the last two years, but we’re still up. If you zoom out on that chart, I mean, we’re up, what, 100% in the last five years on prices.

So still a great time to be a seller unless you happen to buy it last year. Then you’re going to take a little bit of a hit. But really a good time to be on the market.

Priced right, you’re going to sell. Some of these analysis, I just did one in Hilliard yesterday for this guy. And it’s like in the neighborhood, they sell three days, two days, five days.

Did one in Pickerington last week. The comparable sales were like six days, four days, two days. And that’s not been the case.

It’s been more like 21, 35 days. And so a couple of these neighborhoods are really still humming depending on where you’re at. That’s a good thing for the sellers, right? Yeah.

Yeah, well, and that’s where the conversation shifts to. It’s like, hey, if you’re on the market for 10 days, you’ve had 600 people see this listing on the MLS. And you have one showing, no showings.

The market’s telling you you’re overpriced. Right, right. And if you list it and it’s priced right, it ought to go in less than 10 days right now in some of these neighborhoods.

Now, you got to be careful because a lot of the realtors, I think, come in and they’ll intentionally underprice you. Because they want a quick sale. So, I mean, there’s got to be a balancing act where it’s like you want to make as much as possible, but you don’t want it to take forever.

And that’s where, you know, get multiple opinions, you know, when you meet with a listing agent. You know, don’t just meet one person and sign up. You know, interview two, three of them and compare everybody.

That would be my advice. Yeah, that’s a good idea. You know, the other thing that, again, we’re talking about in the last several weekly videos has been appraisals, you know, coming in short.

And so, you know, I’ve had a couple of them. We’ve priced houses where we thought. One of them was an overbid that came in less.

The other one was priced, you know, what I thought was a good pricing strategy. And then it came in short. So, you know, it just, it’s a one person opinion.

You know, I think the common theme is that every seller, including myself, thinks that their house is the world’s best. And that my house is worth at least $10,000 more than the guy down the street who just sold. Because of this, this, this, and this.

And, you know, one of, one of the strategies that, that I’ve looked at, Jay, you probably do the same exact thing. That look at two different numbers. You know, I look at the average for the neighborhood.

And then I also look at the average cost per square foot. And then somewhere in between is going to be the real story. And then if the house is a pottery barn style home, super clean, super neutral, super updated, you are going to get a price increase.

No doubt about it. But if your house is just, you know, again, the average house with, you know, updated Berber carpet, you know, new paint, you know, new appliances. But the kitchen hasn’t been updated, so on and so forth.

The buyers are, and Jaime, you can talk about this, the buyers are just more picky. Jaime, you work with the buyers. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think, you know, we’ve said it here maybe a few weeks in a row now, but buyers want a finished product.

I mean, they want something they can move into. So if your house has finished kitchen, you know, an updated kitchen rather, updated master bath, guest bath, you know, those houses are going quick and you’re up against multiple bids. Anywhere that has, you know, you know, pretty solid suburbia, school district, things like that.

Again, if the seller has, you know, done their work to the house, like I said, updated kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, neutral paint, you tend to see, you know, you’re up against multiple offers. And if your house needs, you know, some work and some updating, you know, that’s where, you know, I see buyers that aren’t as interested as, you know, well, the last one we saw was updated. And this one I have to put, you know, $20,000 into it to even get it closed.

I’m not interested. And that’s where price can be a little bit of a reflection. And I think a lot of buyers have a leg up if they have a little bit of an imagination.

You know, you can get a pretty nice big house for a good price that maybe needs a little bit of updating. And sellers are willing to negotiate when they’ve been sitting on the market a while. They’re open to creative ideas.

You know, you want $10,000 for updates. You want a rate buy down. I think it’s a good time to be a buyer if you’re in a good position to be a buyer.

But yes, they are a little more picky, want the open concept, a bunch of space and everything updated. So if you’re a buyer that’s willing to be creative, I think you can probably get some pretty good sweat equity in some of these neighborhoods as well. One of the things that it’s a myth, I believe, and I hear it, Jay, you can address this as well.

But I hear it almost every listing appointment. Well, we can, you know, the buyer can always make an offer for less. And, you know, kind of what I hear Jaime saying is that a buyer walks into a house.

They have, and buyers aren’t silly anymore. I mean, buyers know what the neighborhoods are. A lot of times these buyers, this is like the second, third, fifth house that they’ve looked at in the same neighborhood.

So they know what the neighborhood’s going for. And the buyer is not even willing to make an offer. They’re just like, yeah, way overpriced for what it is.

And so the myth is, well, we can always lower price or we can have some negotiation room or they can always make a lower offer. And I think that that’s kind of old school thought in today’s world. Jay, what do you think? I mean, when I run across that, what I tell my sellers is, yeah, like what you’re describing there, that’s how I am as a buyer agent.

You know, I encourage a buyer to make an offer and start low and see where it goes. And, you know, and I’m very good at that when I work on buyer sides to, you know, coax the offer out and get a deal put together somewhere. But most buyers and most buyer agents aren’t like that.

And, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of realtors. And when I say this, I don’t say to be mean or to put anybody down. The average agent in our market sells four to six houses a year.

And there’s a lot of part timers. There’s a lot of people. This is their second, third career.

And they’re, you know, just doing it on the side, helping their friends out. Those people are not the sharks where they’re going to bring you that offer. You know, most of these people, for lack of a better term, are just kind of like professional chauffeurs where they’re just happy to have somebody in the car driving around house to house.

And if the buyer does not feel that house, they’re just going to move on to the next one and they’ll go show 30, 50 houses until they find the right fit. And I don’t, you know, I don’t, I haven’t really spent a ton of time developing out like, well, why is that? Other than it just seems to me that like a very American thing that, well, I’m pre-approved for 700,000. This is a $700,000 house.

I’m not going to buy it for 650. I’m just going to go find another $700,000 house. And I’m going to spend what my pre-approval was up to.

And what my payment I’m comfortable with is versus, well, I can see that, yeah, this one needs a kitchen and a bathroom and I can do it for 30,000, but I can get it 50,000 off the list price. Buyers don’t think that way. And like, yeah, logically you think they would, but that’s just not, it’s pretty rare.

Back in 2010, 2011, 2012, man, that’s all we did was help you find a foreclosure, figure out what is it worth fixed up totally. What are you going to put into it? You got this much in equity instantly, you know, buy the house. And back then everybody was looking for a deal.

That’s not, people today, in my opinion, are just looking for a payment they’re comfortable with. And like Jaime said, a house that’s moving ready. And so, I mean, I think you kind of get the double whammy.

If your house needs some love, you’re going to get beat up on the list price to begin with. And you got to be at a discounted price. And you’re going to get hit on both sides, you know, and the buyer’s going to walk away getting a deal.

I think the other thing that happens there, Jay, is that buyers have no clue of what something costs to repair, replace, update. Oh, they’re on chat GPT getting outrageous numbers. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they need to put carpet in, you know, house and it’s going to be $20,000 for carpet. Yeah, that’s $10,000. And it’s like, you could get the carpet for $6,000, you know, and it’d be a very good carpet.

Or, you know, to remodel this bathroom is going to cost me $20,000. And it’s like, no, you could have the bathroom remodeled for, you know, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 bucks, depending on, you know, finishes. And that’s where sellers are at a disadvantage as well, is that the buyer is overestimating the cost of the update.

Yeah. And then they’re saying, okay, well, you’re listed at $700,000, but I got $100,000. I got to put it into the house.

And so the neighborhood is only $700,000. I had to be able to buy the house for $600,000. And I was like, no, that’s not quite right.

But perception is reality. And that’s, you know, what we try to walk our sellers through is that, you know, if it’s something that you can do, because I’m like you, Jay, I would look for a house where I could buy it. You know, for $100,000 off and know it’s only going to cost me $25,000 to make it right.

And then I’ve got $75,000 in equity. But a lot of stuff, you know, I can do myself. And, you know, that’s always the biggest cost is labor to getting, you know, things updated, upgraded and the know-how.

You know, because the buyers are walking into these houses that the seller has done some of the updates and upgrades themselves. And it looks like it. And it’s like, they’re not interested, you know, so it’s an interesting market.

I think buyers are more picky. Sellers, as usual, think their house is worth $100,000 more than what it is in reality. And, you know, part of what we do is we do the walkthrough.

We tell you where to focus, what to do, how to do it, where to spend your money to get the most bang for your buck. And then give you a good, honest price assessment. And then we go from there.

And then we have Rich on the backside to help get you financed. Jaime on the buyer side to help you buy. And the whole package comes together, along with home inspectors.

And, you know, I just had a house that, you know, had roof hats. The roof hats were installed by a fairly big-name roofing company here in town about seven, eight years ago. And the roof hats weren’t installed correctly.

And then the company doesn’t want to stand behind it. So we work with another company called Muth, M-U-T-H Roofing. Muth went over the next day that, you know, my clients called and said, hey, we’re working with Dave Barlow.

He had a crew over there pretty much the next day. They replaced the roof hats, you know, per the home inspection. And, you know, everybody’s happy.

And so we have a whole list of vendors is the point from roofing to windows to carpet to remodel, whatever you need. These guys have all been vetted. A lot of them have done work on my home, Jay’s home, Jaime’s home.

And these guys are damn good at what they do. And they’re reasonably priced. And so, anyways, I do all my own work.

I don’t hire any outsiders. I’m on YouTube. I’m the repairman around here.

The people that I like to use are, and the people, how you get on my vendor list is that I call you out to a job and you say, no, you don’t need to do anything with this. When I say it, we just had a basement guy went out to one that, you know, there’s water. You can see the water stains in the block walls.

And, you know, he comes out and he’s like, no, you just need to keep your gutters clean. You know, I see this all the time with lawn sprinklers. You know, he could have sold them a $10,000 waterproofing system.

And he didn’t do that. He was honest. And so, I mean, those are the people.

That’s how you get on my vendor list. So, people that I’m sending to my clients are people that have turned down free money. Because I now know that you’re not going to BS somebody and try and take advantage of them.

I could go on about that. But, well, what? Let Jaime do the wrap up here with a like and subscribe. I like how you do the wrap ups, actually.

Oh, boy. Here we go again. Out we go.

If you want to get my vendor list, leave a like. If you want to be on Dave’s list, subscribe. If you’ve got complaints, call Dave.

If you’ve got loans, refis, call Rich. If you need to buy a house, do not call me, call Jaime. But if you need to list and sell and you want it done quickly with a better looking, more hair version of dad, give me a call.

Numbers are below. Leave a comment. We’ll make sure that we get to them.

I know that Rich reads every single comment and then calls me complaining. Why did that person say this? So, leave a comment. We’ll see you guys next week.

Thanks for watching or listening. I had a client say, hey, I heard your podcast. I didn’t know that Dave was doing that.

So, apparently we’re on the audio ways on pirate radio.com. So, that’s cool. And we’ll catch you guys next week for a 4th of July update before the big holiday weekend.

Have a great rest of June, guys. We’ll see you in July.