They bought at the peak in 2021. Now they're divorcing and selling. Here's how that actually goes

I recently sold a home for a couple who bought at the end of 2021, right around the top of the market. COVID was hard on a lot of families. Money got tight, cracks opened up, and for this couple it ended in divorce. Which meant the house had to go.

Selling during a divorce is a different job. You're not working with one client. You're working with two people who are hurting, who don't agree on much anymore, and who each pull you aside with their own version of what should happen. The kids are in the middle of it.

The first decision was price. They wanted to list at what they paid in 2021.

I strongly advised against it. The market they bought in doesn't exist anymore. But it's their home and their call, so we listed at their number.

Crickets. A full month of almost nothing.

After that month, I sat down with both of them, separately and together, and we agreed to cut the price by about fifty grand. The change was immediate. Showings picked up, then offers started coming in.

Some were low, and every low offer landed like a personal insult. When your marriage is ending and a stranger offers way under asking for your family's home, you don't hear a number. You hear disrespect.

My job in those weeks was half negotiating and half keeping two exhausted people from blowing up deals out of pure emotion.

Eventually one offer came through at the top of what we'd seen. They accepted. Now we wait for closing, and then each of them can figure out their next chapter.

Yes, they took a loss from their 2021 price. That stings, and I won't dress it up. But they both got to the same place in the end. We just want to sell and move on with our lives.

Holding out for a 2021 number wasn't protecting their money. It was stretching out the most painful season of their lives.

Three things I'd want you to take from this

1. The market doesn't care what you paid. Buyers only compare your home to what else they can buy today. Pricing at your 2021 number doesn't protect your equity. It just gets you a silent month.

2. In a divorce sale, the enemy is emotion. Low offers will feel like insults. They're not. They're just offers. The couples who get through this fastest agree early to treat the house as a number.

3. Sometimes the loss is the price of your next chapter. If holding the house keeps you tied to a marriage that's over, selling below your old price isn't losing. It's paying for the exit.

Nobody buys a home at the peak planning to sell it in a down market during a divorce. But life doesn't check the market before it happens to you. When it does, the goal isn't winning the sale. It's getting your life back.