On the windswept coast of North Carolina, Ron Hertrich has spent months trying — and failing — to sell his parents’ 40-year-old beach house. He scrubbed off the old paint and repainted the walls a warm “shiitake beige.” He replaced the furniture, including a glass-top dining table with rattan legs, with something more modern.
When that didn’t work, he offered a $10,000 cash “incentive” that a prospective buyer could use as they pleased.
Despite all this, the condo — which sits 100 yards from the water line — has become a monument to the shifting tides of the real estate market. After just two showings in two months, his real estate agent advised him to take new pictures in an effort to relaunch the listing this spring.
The same thing happened hundreds of miles away in Atlanta, where Aimée Berry, 56, put her furniture in storage and lived in a perpetual state of readiness, only for a total of six people to come see her one-bedroom condo in six months.
“It was depressing,” she said, explaining that she too was advised to take her home off the market.
From the salt-sprayed porches of North Carolina to the suburban stretches and urban cores of Atlanta, Austin and Tampa, a subtle shift has occurred: What was once one of the most entrenched sellers’ markets in history has finally tilted in the direction of buyers.
