Most market reports tell you what homes sold for. Almost none tell you how many didn’t sell at all — which, if you’re about to list, is the number that should worry you most.
We pulled and analyzed 14,417 residential listings across Davidson County (Nashville) over the trailing year. After de-duplicating homes that were re-listed, the picture for sellers is sharper — and more sobering — than the headlines suggest.
The three numbers every Nashville seller should know
- 33% of homes never sold. One in three listings left the market without a sale — cancelled or expired. The owners pulled the home, gave up, or ran out of listing time.
- 66% of the homes that did sell went for less than their original asking price. Two out of three sellers cut their price before closing — a median of about 5% under where they started.
- The homes that sold did so in a median of 27 days. So the market isn’t “slow” everywhere — it’s split. Priced and prepared homes move fast; the rest sit, then stall, then expire.
(For context, the median Davidson County sale in our data came in around $490,000 — broadly in line with Redfin and Realtor.com figures for the same period, which is a good reality check on the rest of the numbers.)
Why a third of listings don’t sell
It’s rarely one big thing. Across the listings that expired or cancelled, the same patterns repeat:
- Priced to 2022, selling in 2026. Inventory is up and buyers have choices again. A price that would’ve drawn offers two years ago now draws silence.
- Condition. Homes needing obvious work compete poorly against updated listings — buyers using financing often can’t (or won’t) take them on.
- Showing friction. Occupied homes, tenant schedules, deferred maintenance — anything that makes a home hard to show quietly kills momentum.
- Time pressure that doesn’t fit the retail timeline. A retail sale that finally closes in 60–90 days doesn’t help a seller who needed to move in 30.
Why two-thirds sell below asking
A 66% “sold-below-original-list” rate doesn’t mean sellers are getting fleeced — it means the list price is increasingly a starting point, not a destination. In a market with more inventory and longer days-on-market, the first price is a test. When the test fails, sellers cut. The ones who priced realistically from day one tended to sell faster and closer to ask.
What this means if you’re thinking about selling
- Price against today’s comps, not last year’s. Pull sold prices from the last 60–90 days, not the last 12 months.
- Fix the cheap, high-visibility stuff (paint, fixtures, landscaping) before listing — or accept that buyers will price the work in, and then some.
- Know your real timeline. If you can wait 90+ days and your home shows well, the retail market can work. If you can’t, build that into your plan before you list — not after a listing expires.
- Have a fallback. One in three sellers needed one and didn’t have it.
Your options when a listing stalls
If your home is in good shape, shows easily, and you have time, a traditional agent listing is usually the way to net the most. For everyone else — inherited or vacant homes, properties needing repairs, tight timelines, or a listing that already expired — the alternatives are worth knowing: price reductions, a fresh agent and strategy, renting it out, or selling directly to a cash buyer to skip the showings and the financing risk.
(Full disclosure: we’re one of those cash buyers — Sell My House Fast TN. We bought across Davidson County throughout the period in this data. But the right move depends on your situation, and for plenty of sellers that’s a retail listing, not us.)
Methodology
Figures are based on 14,417 Davidson County residential listings from Realtracs MLS data over the trailing ~12 months ending Q1 2026, de-duplicated by property address so that re-listed homes are counted once. “Did not sell” = listings that cancelled or expired without an associated closed sale. “Sold below original list” compares closed sale price to the original list price. Median sale price and days-on-market reflect closed transactions only.
For journalists and researchers: you’re welcome to cite these figures with a link to this page. For a breakdown by ZIP code or price band, contact us at sellmyhousefasttn.com/contact-us and we’ll share it.