Homes Are Taking 77 Days to Sell. Sellers Are Still Getting Nearly Full Price.

Most sellers I talk to worry about the same thing. They think if a house sits, they've lost the upper hand. That buyers smell weakness and start writing lowball offers.

Here's what the data actually says.

Over the twelve weeks ending September 13, 2026, the median home across the territory took 77 days to sell. That's not fast. I won't pretend it is. But the median sale-to-list ratio came in at 99.9%, and about 18% of sales closed over asking. Homes are taking their time. They are not taking a discount to do it.

That's the part that surprises people. A longer wait and a strong price aren't supposed to sit next to each other. But they do, right now, across this whole territory.

It's not the same story everywhere, though, and I'm not going to pretend it is. In Guntersville, the median days to pending ran 119 days.

In Boaz, the same measure ran 37 days. That's one metric describing two very different markets inside one buy box. If you're in Guntersville waiting for a Boaz timeline, you'll be disappointed. If you're in Boaz expecting a Guntersville wait, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

There's a wrinkle worth naming, too. In Albertville, the median sale price rose about 19% year over year. The average sale-to-list ratio there slipped almost 2 percentage points over the same period. Homes are selling for more, and sellers are giving up a little more to get there.

Boaz told a similar story. Median sale price there rose about 17% year over year, while the average sale-to-list ratio fell about 2 percentage points. More money changing hands, a little less leverage per dollar.

Guntersville ran the other direction. Median sale price there fell about 9% year over year, while the average sale-to-list ratio there rose about 1 percentage point. Less money on the table, but sellers holding their ground better on what they did ask.

So what does a longer market actually feel like on a Saturday? It means fewer people through the door on day one. It means the offer, when it comes, takes a few more weeks to arrive than it might have a couple years back. It doesn't mean you're negotiating from behind. The numbers don't support that fear.

For sellers, this means patience is doing the heavy lifting, not price cuts. You're not pricing to move fast. You're pricing right and giving it room to work. For buyers, especially in the slower corners of the territory, there's more time to think before you write an offer. That's not nothing.

What would change my read here is the sale-to-list ratio. If that number starts sliding across more than one or two markets at once, that's when the leverage story actually shifts. Right now, it hasn't.

I'm not guessing on any of this. It's MLS sold data, twelve weeks, this territory. No surprises, just what's actually happening.

If you've been sitting on the sidelines wondering what your place would fetch in this stretch, that's a conversation worth having. Reach out and I'll walk through what a current home value estimate looks like for your street specifically.

- Blake