If you’re a female solo agent watching the spring market and quietly wondering how anyone is producing transactions right now — I want to talk to you about what I’m actually seeing inside Powerhouse this month.

Because here’s the truth: the agents producing transactions in May 2026 aren’t doing it because they’re working harder. They’re doing it because they’re having different conversations. Five of them, specifically. Same five conversations, in every market, in every week of this spring.

The agents who haven’t figured out these conversations are sitting in a soft market wondering where the deals went. The agents who have figured them out are quietly closing — without working 50-hour weeks, without building a team, and without losing the lifestyle they got into real estate to protect.

Here’s what’s working.

How do you talk to sellers stuck on their 3% mortgage rate?

For two years, every solo agent I know has had a version of this conversation: “We want to move. But we can’t give up our 3.2% rate.”

I get it. The math feels obvious. Trading a 3% mortgage for a 6% mortgage looks like financial self-harm. And for a while, the right move was to nod, agree, and check back in six months.

That conversation has changed this spring. New data from Coldwell Banker shows 35% of sellers currently listing their homes hold a mortgage rate below 5%. They’re moving anyway. Not because rates dropped. Because life got louder than the spreadsheet.

Here’s how the agents producing transactions are reframing this conversation: it’s not about giving up a rate. It’s about running the real numbers instead of reacting to the headline number.

If your seller bought between 2018 and 2022, their equity position looks dramatically different than it did three years ago. In many markets, the appreciation they’ve built more than offsets the payment difference on the next purchase. Not always — but more often than they realize when they’re doing the math in their heads.

There’s also a timing reality almost no one is saying out loud: inventory is rising. Every month more sellers enter the market, your seller’s competition increases and their negotiating leverage shrinks. The window for the seller with fewer listings around them is narrowing, not widening.

The agents producing transactions aren’t pushing anyone into a sale. They’re just refusing to let assumptions stand in for a financial plan. That conversation alone is putting houses on the market right now.

How do you reframe new construction for buyers who’ve ruled it out?

Most buyers scroll right past new construction. Too expensive. Takes too long. Can’t negotiate with a builder.

That conversation is outdated. Here’s what’s actually happening in the new construction market right now: 65% of builders are offering buyer incentives, and that number has held steady for nearly a full year. Builders aren’t panicking — but they’re motivated. And when a builder is motivated, the deal looks very different than most buyers picture.

The most common incentive is a mortgage rate buydown. A 2-1 buydown drops the rate by 2% in year one and 1% in year two before settling at the permanent rate. On a $400,000 home at today’s rates, that’s roughly $500 to $700 less per month in year one. That’s not a small number when your buyer is qualifying for a loan.

Beyond rate buydowns, builders are regularly offering $6,000 to $15,000 in closing cost credits. Appliance packages. Flooring upgrades. Design center credits that make the true cost significantly more competitive than the sticker price.

The catch most buyers miss: these deals typically require using the builder’s preferred lender. That’s worth understanding before your buyer walks into a model home without you.

The builder’s sales rep works for the builder. Every single day. A good buyer’s agent has worked with local builders, knows which incentives are negotiable, and can sometimes stack additional concessions on top of what’s already advertised. The agents producing transactions in May are the ones reopening the new construction conversation with buyers who’d ruled it out — and getting paid for the value they’re adding.

How do you get a seller to accept a pricing recommendation that feels low?

Every seller you’ll ever work with will have some version of the same reaction when you present pricing: “That feels low.”

You can’t argue them out of it. Their home isn’t just a financial asset to them. They raised their kids there. They know every corner of it. The number you’re suggesting doesn’t honor any of that — and you shouldn’t pretend it does.

But here’s what they need to hear, and the agents producing transactions are saying it clearly: buyers don’t shop for the highest price they can pay. They set a search range. The seller’s home either shows up near the top of results with an attractive price, or near the bottom where it gets glanced at and forgotten.

Overpricing doesn’t just mean fewer offers. It means fewer showings. Fewer showings means fewer people falling in love with the home. Fewer people falling in love means negotiating from weakness.

The math that plays out over and over: a home priced right in the first ten days generates urgency. Urgency generates competition. Competition is the only thing that reliably pushes a final sale price above asking. Not hope. Not holding out. Competition.

A home priced $20,000 too high in week one is usually a home that sells for $20,000 less than it could have six weeks later after the price reduction. The reduction doesn’t fix the perception. Buyers wonder what’s wrong with it. They negotiate harder. They ask for more concessions.

The right price feels slightly uncomfortable. It should. The agents producing transactions are the ones who can hold that conversation with warmth AND clarity — not the ones who cave when their seller pushes back.

If you want a tighter playbook for nailing the pricing and presentation conversation with sellers, I keep a Listing & Buyer Presentation Kit available here → — it’s what most Powerhouse members use to anchor these conversations.

How do you re-open the conversation with buyers who think they’re priced out?

There’s a brutal stat that’s been making the rounds this spring: middle-income buyers can currently afford just 21% of homes listed for sale. Before the pandemic, that number was close to 50%.

That stat is real. I’m not going to pretend the affordability math isn’t hard right now.

But every time a Powerhouse agent sits down with buyers who feel completely priced out, she finds the same thing: there’s a gap between what the buyer believes is possible and what’s actually on the table once they look at it together with the right information.

Three things change the 21% figure for an individual buyer:

First, geography. The national stat includes some of the most expensive markets in the country. A targeted search in the right zip codes — or adjacent neighborhoods one exit further out — changes the math significantly.

Second, loan programs. Most buyers approach the market with conventional financing in mind. But USDA loans, FHA loans, down payment assistance, and first-time buyer programs exist in almost every market. Some buyers are leaving $15,000 to $25,000 in assistance on the table simply because they didn’t know to ask.

Third, new construction incentives (see above). A buydown that drops the effective rate by even 1% in year one can be the difference between a home that qualifies and one that doesn’t.

The affordability crisis is real. The agents producing transactions aren’t soft-pedaling it. They’re just refusing to let “I can’t afford anything out there” go unchallenged when they have actual tools the buyer doesn’t know about.

Why does May timing matter more than most agents are telling their sellers?

If you have sellers sitting in the “almost ready” zone right now, they need to hear this conversation in the next two weeks. Not in July.

May is consistently one of the strongest selling months of the year. Not because of sentiment — because of how buyers actually behave in the spring. Families lock in before the school year ends. Buyers who started looking in February are now ready to commit. The pool of motivated, decision-ready buyers is as large right now as it will be all year.

Homes listed in May have historically sold faster and closer to asking price than homes listed in almost any other month. Demand is high. Buyers are serious. The urgency to make a move before summer is real.

Here’s what happens on the other side of this window: summer listings hit at the exact moment buyer activity starts to slow. School’s out. Families shift into vacation mode. The serious spring buyers have largely made decisions. Your seller is competing for a smaller, less urgent pool. Meanwhile, inventory that didn’t sell in April and May is still sitting there right next to her new listing.

The difference between a May listing and a July listing isn’t just timing on a calendar. It’s the composition of buyers looking at the home and how urgently they need to make a decision. Urgency is what creates offers.

The agents producing transactions in this market are the ones helping sellers see the cost of waiting — not pressuring them into a sale, but refusing to let “we’ll list in July” pass without a real conversation about what that decision actually costs.

If you’re starting May without a content engine to fuel these five conversations across your social, I built The Weekly Edit for exactly this — done-for-you reels, captions, and content strategy delivered every week so the right conversation is already loaded for every agent in Powerhouse. Take a look here →

What’s the difference between an agent producing transactions in this market and one who isn’t?

It’s not hours worked. It’s not lead volume. It’s not market.

It’s whether or not you’re having these five conversations — clearly, consistently, and confidently.

Most agents in a soft market default to one of two postures: hustle (more outreach, more cold leads, more activity) or hibernation (wait for the market to come back). Neither produces transactions in this kind of market.

The agents producing transactions inside Powerhouse are doing the third thing: they’re showing up to every conversation with the data, the reframe, and the clarity their clients are missing. Buyers walk in feeling priced out and walk out with a strategy. Sellers walk in stuck on their rate and walk out scheduling photos. New construction buyers walk in writing off the option and walk out asking about a 2-1 buydown.

That’s the work. And no amount of grinding 50-hour weeks substitutes for it.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the most common reason solo agents aren’t producing transactions in this market?

They’re letting their buyers and sellers stand on outdated assumptions without ever offering them updated math. The data has changed. The conversations haven’t.

Do I need a team to scale to $10M while having all these conversations weekly?

No. Powerhouse is full of female solo agents producing $10M without building teams — they’re just having higher-leverage conversations with the clients they already have.

Where do you get the data points to support these conversations?

National data sources (Coldwell Banker, NAR, builder association reports) and the conversations Powerhouse members are having across their own markets every week. The Weekly Edit packages this into ready-to-use reels and carousels so the data doesn’t lag behind the market.

Can I start having these conversations with my current clients right now?

Yes. Pick the one that fits your most active buyer or seller this week, and start there. You don’t need a five-conversation playbook on day one. You need ONE conversation on day one.

What’s next?

If you read this and thought, “this is exactly the kind of clarity I want for my own business” — let’s talk.

I’m Amy Gregory. I lead Powerhouse, a community of 800+ female solo agents at eXp Realty scaling to $10M by having higher-leverage conversations with clients in their own markets — without building teams, without burning out.

👉 Book a 15-min Powerhouse Try-On call with me →

No pitch. No pressure. Just a conversation about which of these five conversations you’re already nailing — and which one is leaking transactions for you right now.

Pinky promise, I won’t tell your broker. ⚡