By November 2022 the easy part of the market was over. Rates had climbed most of the year, buyers had gotten cautious, and plenty of sellers were watching offers come in under asking or not come in at all. We sold this one at exactly list price.

That result came down to knowing who the buyer for this property actually was. On paper it's a 1,279 square foot three bedroom, and if you market square footage you're competing with every small house in Pierce County. But nobody buys this property for the house. They buy it for the full acre of park-like grounds and the massive oversized shop, and those two things together are what's genuinely hard to find at this price point. That's the buyer I wrote to.

My sellers had also done the work, which made the job much easier. New roof. Fresh paint inside. A gorgeous new front deck and a covered back deck set up for a BBQ or a hot tub. Most of the appliances staying. In a nervous market, a buyer's tolerance for projects drops to almost nothing, and move-in ready stops being a nice phrase and starts being the reason an offer gets written at all.

The grounds are the part people remember. A manicured lawn across better than an acre, a firepit, and a play-set that stayed with the property, which quietly tells a young family everything they need to know about whether this place works for them.

We listed at $400,000 and closed at $400,000 in November 2022, no reductions.

Acreage, a shop, and nothing to fix. Price that combination honestly and the right buyer finds it even in a slow month.