Today’s Housing Market Is Forcing These Questions

By Tania Michaels

Tania Michaels is a seasoned real estate professional with nearly two decades of experience in the field. She began her career as a top loan originator before becoming a key player in land acquisitions, closing over $215M in transactions.

Here’s what I think 2026 looks like. Interest rates stay roughly where they are, maybe a modest easing. Inventory keeps going up. And sellers face more competition than they have in a very long time.

Probably not what you wanted to hear if you’re selling your house.

But that’s not the biggest story of 2026. I think a market like this has a way of forcing bigger questions, questions we don’t have to face or answer when everything is going our way. Most of us think we already know what’s most important in our lives. Really, we don’t discover that until it costs us something.

We think we’re being rational right up until we’re not. One of my favorite illustrations of this happened in the movie Interstellar. There’s a point where the crew has to make a vital decision about which planet to go to next, and Anne Hathaway’s character votes for Edmund’s planet. Matthew McConaughey’s character criticizes her. He knows she’s in love with Edmund, and he thinks her judgment is clouded by emotion.

Then the movie turns. One galactic curveball after another, and eventually he faces the biggest decision of his life. By the end, he realizes that what he’d dismissed as emotion wasn’t a cloud on judgment at all. It led them to the breakthrough they’d been looking for the whole time.

That’s what life does to all of us. We think we’re making decisions based on logic and rationality until things don’t go according to plan, and then we find out what’s really calling the shots.

Every one of us has a deeply held belief that casts the deciding vote. We’re not neutral. We like to think we are, that we’re following sound financial theories. We’re not. There’s something underneath all of that that’s in control, and it shows up the moment you’re forced to choose between two good things.

Let me tell you what I mean. You tell me your dream is to spend the final chapter of your life near your grandkids and your children. Then you find out your house will sell for $50,000 less than you thought, and suddenly you don’t want to move anymore.

More money or more time with family. Which one gets the deciding vote?

That’s not a real estate question. But the real estate process forces those kinds of questions into the open.

Figure that part out before the sign goes in the yard. Some people put their house on the market and wing it. Can I just tell you, putting your house on the market is a terribly inconvenient and disruptive way to figure out what matters most to you. So let’s figure that part out first, and then we can put the sign in the yard knowing exactly why it’s there.

Start not with how much money am I going to make, but with what kind of life am I trying to build. Why is that important to me? And if the market makes it harder, is that still worth pursuing?

Once you’re solid on those answers, the decision to sell your house in this market gets a lot easier and a lot clearer.

A real estate market like the one we’re in now doesn’t dictate your priorities. It’s going to show you what they really are. And I think that’s the biggest story of 2026.

If you’re weighing a move and you want to talk through the real estate part, I’m here for it. Text the word SELL to 702-583-6555, or email me at sales@michaelsteam.com, and we’ll start with what you’re actually trying to build.