Breaking: Home Sellers Want More Than Buyers Are Willing to Pay (And in Other News, the Sky Is Blue)

A recent report revealed that the average seller is hoping for nearly 10% more than what buyers are willing to pay.

Um, yeah…

For anyone actively working in real estate—or honestly, even casually tuning into HGTV once or twice—this isn’t exactly groundbreaking. Of course sellers want more! And of course…buyers want to pay less! It’s literally how real estate works.

But in the spirit of celebrating obvious truths disguised as shocking new research, here’s a roundup of Real Estate Headlines That Aren’t Headlines—fake-study-style revelations that somehow needed a survey to confirm what every agent already knows.

Here are 12 predictable buyer and seller behaviors, served up like breaking news:

(And yes, the percentages are fake. Just like how every buyer magically finds “the one” after seeing three houses on those house hunting shows.)

1) Study Finds 98% of Buyers Despise Bidding Wars—but Enter Them Anyway

Turns out, no one enjoys emotionally attaching to a home only to lose it to someone with 20% more cash and 0% contingencies. Buyers say they “just want a fair shot,” but ironically, so does everyone else—at the same house.

2) 89% of Sellers Still Believe Their 1997 Granite Adds Value, Emotional or Otherwise

Sure, granite countertops were a huge step up from formica…twenty years ago. The term “updated” doesn’t have a set amount of time, but some sellers certainly try to test those limits by pushing their agent to tout their decades-old remodel in the listing description.

3) Report Reveals 3 in 4 Buyers Can “Look Past Cosmetic Issues”… Unless the Wall Is Mauve

Buyers confidently say, “Oh, paint is easy to change!” before recoiling in horror from a beige accent wall. (Not mentioned in the study is how those same buyers feel like taking out a load-bearing wall in another house will be easy-peasy.)

4) Study Shows 71% of Sellers Who Promise to Stay “Out of Sight” Do the Complete Opposite

Yeah, yeah, they know they’re “supposed” to leave the house when a buyer comes to see the place, but they swear they’ll stay out of their way. Then they proceed to hover near the stairs… and in the kitchen… and by the front door as they “casually” water a dead plant. At least until they can’t take it anymore and blurt out how the granite counter tops they just installed—back in 1997—just to make sure the buyer didn’t overlook that feature.

5) 84% of Buyers Want “Like-New” Homes at “Fixer-Upper” Prices

What buyer wouldn’t want move-in ready, magazine-worthy perfection… priced like it still has shag carpet and freshly updated 1997 granite countertops?!

6)Homes That Are Wildly Overpriced See Shockingly Fewer Offers, Study Finds

Who could’ve predicted that fewer buyers show up for homes priced like a private island?

7) Study Confirms 92% of Buyers Who Want to “Sleep On It” End Up Losing the House to Another Buyer

“You snooze, you lose” might not be a real estate term, but it should be. It’s a timeless truth for buyers who ‘just want to sleep on it’—right before someone else snaps it up.

8) 68% of Sellers Who Overprice Blame Marketing, Not Price Tag

Clearly the buyers would have paid $75K over market… if only someone had run more Facebook ads. The issue couldn’t possibly be the price, right?

9) 94% of Buyers Say They’re Comfortable Going Over Asking—Until Advised to Offer Over Asking

Enthusiasm typically fades somewhere between “We’ll do whatever it takes!” and “Wait, how much over asking should we go?!”

10) 1 in 3 Sellers With a Crack in Their Basement Wall Confidently Claim It Is “Just Cosmetic”

Are they structural engineers? Nope. But they point out how it’s “been there for years and the house hasn’t fallen down yet,” which somehow is supposed to be reassuring.

11) Survey Finds Buyers Who Say They’ll Be the “Easiest Client Ever” Take Two Years to Decide

If a buyer says something like, “I’ll be the quickest, easiest commission you’ve ever made,” it’s probably National Opposite Day—because those buyers almost never live up to that claim.

12) 100% of Sellers Feel Personally Attacked by Lowball Offers, Study Confirms

It doesn’t matter if the lowball offer is self-inflicted due to overpricing, or because a buyer is just unrealistic or overly hopeful, sellers take low offers harder than a toddler being handed the blue cup instead of the red one.