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Don’t Let the Midterms Distract You From What’s Actually Happening in Real Estate.
The midterm primaries are in full swing. Polling suggests the Democrats may be positioned to make meaningful gains. The political commentary is everywhere — and with it comes a familiar pattern that plays out in every election cycle: buyers and sellers freeze in place, convinced that whoever wins will dramatically change their mortgage rate, home value, or decision to move.
Let’s address that directly — with data, not opinion — and then focus on what actually matters right now for buyers and sellers in this market.
What Elections Actually Do to Real Estate. Spoiler: Not Much.
The historical record is more reassuring than most people expect — and more definitive than the political chatter suggests.
Over the past 40 years, home prices have shown notable resilience during election years, averaging 4.8% growth — actually slightly higher than the 4.4% average in non-election years. After 9 of the last 11 presidential elections, home sales increased in the year following the election. The one significant outlier was 2008 to 2009 — and that had nothing to do with who won. It had everything to do with the subprime mortgage crisis that had been building for years.
Bright MLS chief economist Lisa Sturtevant said it plainly: “Historically, the housing market doesn’t tend to look very different in presidential election years compared to other years. It’s really about demographics and the economy.”
What about mortgage rates specifically? Looking at the last 11 presidential election years, Freddie Mac data shows mortgage rates decreased from July to November in eight of them, not because of who won — but because uncertainty tends to keep the bond market cautious and yields contained during the lead-up to a result.
The Freddie Mac data going back to 1971 show there is not enough change in mortgage rates around elections to suggest the presidential cycle has a significant impact in either direction.
Here is the bottom line: even a meaningful swing to the Democrats in the midterms — as the polls currently suggest is possible — will not materially change what is already a more challenging marketplace. Congress does not set mortgage rates. Congress does not determine your local inventory levels. Congress does not decide whether a buyer in your price range shows up this fall or waits until spring. The economy does. The Fed does. Japan does. And none of those forces pivot based on a midterm result.
Stop waiting for an election outcome to tell you what to do. That signal is not coming — from either party.
What Is Actually Happening in the Market Right Now
Here is what does matter — and what every buyer and seller should be focused on instead of primary results.
The market has cooled. That is not a crisis. It is a correction — a return to conditions where properties are valued by the market rather than by panic, where buyers have time to think, and where sellers have to earn their price rather than name it.
The data confirms what agents across the country are seeing on the ground. Asking prices have fallen for eight consecutive months nationally. Days on market are at their longest point in six years. Price reductions are appearing on nearly one in five active listings. The frenzy is over.
And the most important shift of all: sellers are no longer in the catbird seat. The market where a seller could price aspirationally, receive multiple offers in a weekend, and watch buyers waive every contingency to get the deal — that market has changed. What has replaced it is something more rational, more balanced, and ultimately more sustainable. But it requires a completely different approach from sellers who want to succeed in it.
If You Are a Seller: Strategy Is Now Everything
In the 2021 and 2022 markets, sellers did not need a strategy. They needed a sign in the yard and a weekend. That market is gone.
In today’s market, sellers who succeed are the ones who approach the transaction with the same discipline and intentionality they would bring to any significant business decision. That means two things above everything else: strategic pricing and strategic marketing.
Strategic pricing is not guessing. It is not picking a number that feels good or matches what a neighbor got eighteen months ago. It is a precise, data-driven analysis of what the market will actually pay for a specific property — in its current condition, in its specific location, at this specific moment — and positioning it to attract the right buyer at the maximum achievable price. Overpriced properties do not just sit. They actively harm themselves. Every week on the market at the wrong price sends a signal to buyers that something is wrong, even when nothing is wrong except the number.
Strategic marketing is not posting on the MLS and hoping. It is identifying exactly who the buyer for a property is, understanding where they search and what moves them, and putting the right message in front of the right audience at the right moment. Professional photography, compelling positioning, targeted digital reach, and the agent relationships that surface a property to qualified buyers before they ever open Zillow — these are not extras in this market. They are the difference between a sale and a stale listing.
In a cooled market, the gap between a well-executed sale and a poorly executed one is not a few thousand dollars. It is tens of thousands. The seller who gets the strategy right walks away satisfied—the one who does not spends months wondering what went wrong.
If You Are a Buyer: The Window Is Open. Use It.
Buyers have not had this kind of leverage in years. Not because the market is distressed — it is not — but because competition has thinned, urgency has faded, and sellers are negotiating in ways they were not two years ago.
This window will not stay open indefinitely. The shadow demand that has been building — buyers who have been ready to act and waiting for conditions to improve — is beginning to release. When it fully releases, the competitive environment shifts back. The buyer who moves deliberately now is buying ahead of that crowd rather than into it.
Moving deliberately means being genuinely pre-qualified — not a casual online estimate, but a real conversation with a real lender who produces a letter sellers will respect. It means having clarity on non-negotiables before falling in love with a property. It means understanding what has actually sold in the target market at the right price point, not just what is currently listed. And it means working with an agent who will give an honest read — including when to walk away — rather than one who wants to close.
The buyers who bring that level of preparation to this market will find opportunities that did not exist twelve months ago. The ones waiting for perfect conditions will find themselves competing again in the spring.
The Bottom Line
Elections create noise. The real estate market creates outcomes. The two are largely independent of each other, and decades of historical data prove it.
Even if the midterms produce a significant shift — even if the political landscape changes meaningfully — the morning after the results come in, the fundamentals of the local real estate market will be exactly what they were the morning before—a cooled market. Motivated sellers. Prepared buyers with genuine leverage. And a transaction environment that rewards strategy over wishful thinking.
Sellers are no longer in the catbird seat. The buyers who understand that — and who act on it with preparation and clear purpose — are exactly where they need to be right now.
508-420-8800 · thegriffin.co
Griffin Realty Group serves buyers and sellers across the Boston metro and Cape Cod luxury real estate markets.
