Is a 2-1 Buydown Better Than a Price Cut?

The Sell for 1 Percent team breaks down the spooky October real estate market here in Central Ohio. With active listings now over 6,500 and interest rates marching towards 8%, the market appears to be shifting in the buyer’s favor. However, the gang reveals it’s a tale of two markets, where a move-in ready \ home in Dublin can still attract 25 showings and multiple offers while others sit. For Columbus sellers with a property that’s lingering, offering a 2-1 mortgage buydown could be a more effective strategy than a price cut to entice buyers.

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Full Transcript

Hello there, everyone. Jaime with Sell for 1 Percent Realtors. Back October 9th, 2026.

Coming at you live with an update on the real estate market here in Central Ohio. Joined as usual by the gang, Jaysen Barlow, Dave Barlow. And we have Rich Cercone with Highlands Mortgage here live to give us a mortgage update.

We have like two-thirds of a rich. Yeah, I’m doing my best here. I’m not equipped for remote camera access.

Actually, two-thirds of me is better than all of me anyway. For me, only two-thirds is necessary. I’ve also heard that of you.

The market? It’s October and the theme is that it’s a pretty spooky interest rate market right now. It’s frightening to some extent. We are seeming to be marching towards the high 7-8% range.

There doesn’t seem to be anything that wants to slow that march down right now. What I would say is that it’s a great time. I actually was talking with a couple of my kids that are thinking about buying another house.

I said, hey, it’s a great time to buy. You’re going to get a better deal. Then, of course, we went to a house.

They went to look at a house last evening. Before they even got home, they got an email from the realtor saying that it’s multiple offers all due by such and such a day. It’s very anecdotal.

This house that they went to see, apparently it was a pottery barn, as you would say, Dave. Everything was perfect in it. All the finishes were perfect.

The realtor told them they had 25 showings, multiple offers, everything due by five o’clock today. As soon as you think that everything’s all doom and gloom, there are those houses that are going to sell. If you’re trying to sell a house, you’ve got to make it as attractive as possible to the buyer.

If you’re going to buy a house, you’ve got to realize that if you’re willing to do a little bit of sweat and equity, as we used to say, then you might get a better deal. If you’re going to go for that house that’s all finished and perfect, you may get into many more still. That’s probably what you guys are seeing, I imagine, too.

Yeah, I think to a certain extent. That’s whether it’s a good market or a bad market. If a house is in great shape and it’s priced competitively, it’s going to sell.

The ones that we’re seeing sit are the houses that are not in quite such great shape, and they’re overpriced. The buyers are not stupid in today’s marketplace. They know they have the leverage.

Jay will give us a mention here in just a moment about how many listings that we currently have, but that’s what I’m seeing. When I put one on, it’s priced right, it’s still selling. When you are pushing price like you think it’s 2001, you’re in for a little bit of an eye-opener.

2001. Listen, this will come as a shock to everybody here, but Jaysen’s going to disagree. I think what really helps a house like Rich is talking about, my guess would be it’s in Dublin or Powell.

It’s probably between $600,000 and $800,000. It’s in Dublin and it’s $650,000. It’s in Powell and it’s $650,000.

You are exactly right, sir. I have some listings that I don’t think are overpriced and I think are in pretty darn good shape. I’ve got one right now in particular that it’s in the Blacklick area.

We’ve got seven showings over the last six days. Three of the realtors that have buyers that love the house are trying to come in and lowball. They’re saying things to me like, all good markets shift and all good markets end.

You look them up and they’ve sold two houses in three years. Part of the issue is that some people have no clue what they’re doing and then they’re screwing things up, trying to advocate for their client. As Grandma Mary would say, God bless her little hearts.

We’re just going to hang tight and one of our showings will pop. I think location and price point really impacted a lot. I’ve got a condo in Columbus and it’s right around that $250,000 price point.

We’ve had maybe nine showings but three offers. That’s what I was arguing with you last week, Dad, about the showings per offer metric. It all just depends.

That house is showing very well. We had a deal we thought we had put together and then the buyer was selling their house and that kind of blew up on them. So we’re back on the market.

That one will pop. It’s not the best price in the world but it shows exceptionally well. That one may be a little bit on the heavy side on price but it’s going to pop here.

I don’t know. It really depends. I’ve got one I just put in a contract in Dublin that is probably underpriced but wasn’t flying off the shelf.

More in that $400,000 range. In Dublin, the seven $800,000 houses in Dublin, it’s either feast or famine. Some of them are selling with multiple offers and other ones are taking 80 days.

It’s a very strange market. As far as the numbers go, we’re over 6,500 active listings in the MLS. That number continues to rise.

The average days on market is now up to 75 and the median is still hovering right around that 45-day mark. In the last week, we have had MLS-wide 468 houses go into contract. Antidotally, I’ve put in five.

Looking at those numbers and comparing them back to the market, my listings are outpacing the market at double the rate of other realtors right now. It was a good week for J.B. Barlow, bad boy.

Put a bunch into contract. My listings represent over 1% of all the houses that went into contract with 10,000 realtors. Leading up to this last week, it’s been pretty slow, but you can feel it picking back up.

I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. No matter what happens, people are going to still buy. What I’m seeing from my armchair economist point of view is the way the bond market is reacting, even if the Fed starts cutting rates, high mortgage rates are here to stay for a little bit.

I think once buyers realize that and once sellers realize that, the market will break free. If you’re just on the sideline waiting, it’s probably a bad move. If you’re a seller and you’re taking your house off the market, give us a call and relist with us.

Save some money on commission. Get that house out in front of the buyers. Once we get through the elections, I think you’re going to see the market open back up and we’ll chug right along.

We just got to get our unfair share. You do agree with me on one thing from last week. Wait for the election to be done.

I’ve always agreed with that. I’ve seen that with you for 21 years. I’ve seen that.

I would just say that there’s always exceptions to the rules. You’re citing one thing there with regards to pricing and the pottery barn. The averages are developed because some houses sell with one showing.

Some houses sell with 25 showings. Right. 100%.

That’s what our metrics are based on is the number of years that we’ve been doing this, the number of homes that we’ve sold. These are just averages. It’s also an average for a home that is comparable to the current market.

If you have a house with shag carpeting, green flock wallpaper, and mirrors on the ceiling, the house is not going to be comparable to the house next door that sold in the day because it was the potty barn style home. There’s a lot of factors. Jaime, you’re in houses every day with the buyers.

What are the buyers saying about what’s going on here in the market? I think you guys have covered it here. It is surprising. I think, for me at least, you walk through five or ten houses.

Again, one of them that you don’t think is necessarily priced favorably, they love because there’s no work to be done. They can just move right into it. Some of them that are priced substantially lower but need a new kitchen or new master bath or something updated that’s going to cost $10,000, $20,000, they’re not interested at all.

You can give all the advice in the world about that, but at the end of the day, buyers want what buyers want. They have an image in their head of what they want, and that’s what they want to spend their money on. I think right now a big part of it is the number of houses on the market, interest rates.

Buyers are really closely monitoring what they’re spending their money on, and they can be picky. Until they run into a house like Rich is saying, and I see it all the time, Realtor reaches out, and says, hey, we got five offers, make your best offer. It’s like, oh, well, it feels like 2021.

It is kind of a weird tale of two markets during the spooky season here. Things are chugging along, though. One thing that I say is trick or treat.

If your sellers are thinking about a price cut, before they do that, they might want to offer the 2-1 buy-down to people. The 2-1 buy-down mortgage is a 30-year fixed mortgage, so you still have a 30-year fixed rate. Let’s say that today’s rate is 7.5%.

The way the 2-1 buy-down works is the first year, the rate would be 5.5%. The second year, it would be 6.5%. Then in year three, it would go to the full 7.5% for the mortgage.

The advantage to the seller, if you’re thinking about selling a house and you’re thinking about dropping price, is that might only cost you – there’s a math equation to tell you what it would exactly cost. Somebody could call me if they had a question about that. Let’s say it costs $12,000 to do a 2-1 buy-down for a client, and you’re thinking about a $20,000 price drop.

Maybe you’re making your house more attractive because of the better interest rate, and in the end, you’re giving the buyer something of benefit, but not taking as much of a reduction in the net amount you’re going to get for selling it. Yep. The 2-1 buy-down is definitely a good strategy.

Also, buyers, don’t just look for someone to offer that. Make your offer and write it into the contract. Ask for $10,000 in closing costs, or call Rich and get the number, and then ask for that.

Offer the seller the price they want, but then hit them on the backside for the closing costs and get your rate down to where you want it to be. Again, someone like your daughter, look at homes that are priced up at $700,000, and then do that same strategy and get that $650,000 payment. As a buyer, you can get outside the box a little bit.

If you’re a buyer right now, you want to look for the ones that are sitting that are overpriced, that are just kind of hanging out there, because you can go get a deal. You can go pick one off and get a deal. The good news is, fellas, that the state of Ohio got rid of the gas tax.

Just temporarily. Well, we’ve got 90 days. Until the end of the year.

Well, if you want, go ahead and chip back in the 40 cents a gallon. Help the state out. Don’t argue about everything.

We’re not arguing, but I’m just trying to accurately reflect reality. They didn’t get rid of the tax on the holiday. I, for one, am happy to see the gas down.

I saw it over in your neck of the woods there at Cosgray and Hayden Run yesterday at $359 a gallon. It’s all over the place. As I drive around the city, Dad, some are like $330, some are $370, some are $399.

It’s crazy. It’s all market dependent. It’s interesting that you can go from Giant Eagle to Speedway.

Typically there at Roberts and 270, that Thorntons there is low price. But then you go across the street there at Wilcox and Roberts, and it’s 10 cents higher. Well, it’s because no one goes to that Thorntons.

It’s so out of the way. But then you can come up here to Sawmill and 270, and it’s 50 cents higher. When I get off the freeway, it’s become a game that me and Jane will play.

As we get off the freeway on Cemetery, there is a Speedway and a Sheetz at the corner right by 270 and Cemetery. Then there’s a Marathon. Then there’s a UDF.

The Marathon actually has better prices. Typically, yes. It used to be that UDF was the best price in the city all the time.

Now, the other day I thought that, and I drove back to Marathon, and they were 20 cents higher. Oh, boy. It’s wild that all three of those gas stations are within a half mile, and they’re all different prices every time.

I think it was last Sunday. Remember, you get top-tier gas at Marathon. Just remember that.

We drove by, and I saw that it was the cheapest going to a birthday party there at Jay’s house. Then coming back, and I hate to have to turn left to cross over traffic to get to the gas station because you’re turning left to get back out, but I did because I could save 10 cents a gallon, so it was a good day. Now that the state of Ohio has temporarily given us a tax reprieve, I will take advantage of that and fill up my 55-gallon drums.

Between that and the 2-1 buydown, it’s going to be a very nice Christmas. It’s a good day. It’s a good day.

All right, fellas. Thank you. Who’s going to take us home here? Why don’t you take us home? If you guys like the content, like and subscribe.

Make it easier for people to find us. I hear there’s a new feature on YouTube called Hype the Video, so hype it. On the podcast platforms, leave us a five-star review.

Again, it helps people find us when they search. If you have questions about buying a house, give Jaime a call. If you want to explore 2-1 buydowns, permanent buydowns, 3-1 buydowns, ARMS, call Rich Cercone.

If you have complaints in general, call Dad. He likes to argue. He likes to hear complainers.

Give him a call. If you need to sell a house, give me a shout. Seriously, sell for 1%.

You’re saving money, and we’re outperforming the agents that are charging three times as much. It makes no sense. In this market, it sounds too good to be true, so you have to be careful when you say this to people.

I’ve been doing this 21 years. I come from the days of selling hud houses and short sales and foreclosure homes. We’re problem solvers.

We know how to get deals done. We do more to sell your house than traditional agents typically offer. If they do something we don’t do, just let me know, and we’ll do that too.

We do every single thing that they do, and we do it for 1% commission. We’re outpacing the market. We’re outperforming the market right now.

If you’ve got a house to sell, give us a call. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next week. Let’s go Bucks.