I take a lot of texts. Most do not turn into transactions, and those are often the more useful conversations — somebody is trying to make a decision and wants a straight answer from a person who is not selling them something that day.
Six questions come up over and over. Here they are, answered the way I answer them on the phone.
1. “Should I wait for rates to come down?”
I do not know where rates are going. Neither does anybody else who will tell you confidently over a phone. What I do know is inventory, and inventory is the part of this question people skip.
Marion has roughly 159 active listings against about 78 sales a month — call it two months of supply. That is thin. If rates drop, the buyers currently sitting on the fence do not arrive one at a time. They arrive together, into that same two months of inventory, and what falls on the loan gets handed straight back on the purchase price.
So waiting on rates is not a free option. It is a bet that the savings on the money will beat the premium on the house. Sometimes that bet pays. It is still a bet, and it should be made on purpose rather than by default.
2. “An online estimate says my house is worth $X. Is that right?”
An automated estimate is a model. It has never been inside your house, never smelled the crawl space, never noticed that the neighbor’s comp had a finished basement and yours does not.
Those models work best where housing stock is uniform — two hundred homes built in three years off four floor plans. On a single block in Herrin you can have a 1925 bungalow, a 1978 ranch and a 2016 build. The model averages them. A buyer does not.
Use it as a rough anchor, never as a list price — and do not turn down a real offer because a website disagreed with it.
3. “How long is this going to take?”
Longer than the internet implies and shorter than most people fear. Real medians from our own market:
A correctly priced Marion house is selling in about eight weeks — a full month faster than in January. Add thirty to forty-five days for closing and you have your real calendar.
The houses that blow past those medians are rarely victims of the market. They are priced where the seller hoped, not where the last four comparable sales landed, and every week of that optimism gets paid back later with a price cut.
4. “Do I sell first or buy first?”
In a two-month-supply market, the scarce thing is the house you are trying to buy — not the buyer for the house you are leaving. That points most people toward selling first, or at minimum listing first, so that when the right house comes up you are a real buyer instead of a hopeful one.
The exception is simple: if you can carry both payments without it hurting, buy first and move on your own schedule. If it would keep you up at night, do not let anybody talk you into it. A contingent offer that gets accepted beats a non-contingent offer you cannot afford.
5. “Why isn’t my land selling when houses are flying?”
Because they are two different markets wearing the same MLS.
Of Marion’s active listings, 57% of the lots have been sitting more than 90 days, against 22% of the houses. The median active lot has been listed 93 days; the median active house, 42. At the lake it is the same story — houses at a 38-day median, lots at 88.
The reason is financing. Most house buyers bring a conventional, FHA, VA or USDA loan and five percent down or less. Most land buyers bring cash or a land loan with twenty to thirty percent down — a much smaller pool, and a smaller pool takes longer to find.
Land is not broken. It is slower by design, and it has to be priced and marketed for a nine-month window, not a two-month one.
6. “Is the market crashing?”
No — and the shape of this year is the best answer I have.
Across our nine towns, closed sales are running about 154 behind last year. That sounds bad until you look at when it happened: roughly 140 of those 154 went missing in January and February. From April through August, sales have run essentially even with the same five months of last year.
That is not a market falling. That is a market that took a hit in the first quarter and has been flat ever since. Flat is not exciting, and it does not sell headlines. It is also the truth, and you cannot plan around a headline.
What Greg Holthaus Makes of It
The thread running through all six of these is the same: people want certainty about things nobody can be certain about — rates, timing, a number on a screen — and they skip the things that actually are knowable.
Two months of supply is knowable. Fifty-seven days is knowable. Fifty-seven percent of the lots sitting past ninety days is knowable. Whether you can carry two payments is knowable. Build the decision on those, and the rate you get becomes something you manage rather than something you wait on.
And if you have a question that is not on this list, text me. I would rather talk you out of a bad move than sell you a good-looking one.
Ask Greg FAQ
Should I wait for mortgage rates to drop before buying in Southern Illinois?
Is a an online estimate accurate for a Southern Illinois home?
How long does it take to sell a house here right now?
Should I sell before I buy?
Why is land slower to sell than houses?
Is the Southern Illinois market crashing in 2026?
💰 Question One Has a Free Answer
The only honest way to know what waiting on rates would actually cost you is to see your real numbers today. Free, no-pressure pre-qualification with Jarod Sanders, SIRE's in-house lender, right here in Marion.Jarod Sanders · CrossCountry Mortgage · NMLS #2337228
❓ Got a Question That Wasn’t on the List?
Send it over. If it is a good one it may end up in a future Ask Greg — and either way you will get a straight answer back.
📱 Rather Just Text Him?
Text Greg Holthaus directly — just tell him you saw his blog. He’ll help you think through your decision, match you with the best broker for your situation, and point you in the right direction. He’s open to a text any time.
Text Greg · 618.925.8654
Who is Greg Holthaus?
Greg Holthaus is the Owner and Designated Managing Broker of Southern Illinois Realty Experts, with 25+ years in Southern Illinois real estate and more than 10,000 transactions closed. He leads a full-service operation — home sales, mortgage, title, and property management under one roof — with offices in Marion, Herrin, and Carbondale. Meet Greg ›
About the numbers: Marion active-listing counts, days-listed and the median days-to-sell series come from local MLS listing and closed-sale data through August 2026, as reported in our September 14 and September 16 market posts. Lake of Egypt house and lot medians come from our September 15 lake report. The nine-town year-over-year sales comparison covers Marion, Herrin, Carbondale, Carterville, Goreville, Murphysboro, West Frankfort, Johnston City and Benton through August 2026. An honest limitation: active-listing counts reflect one data source’s coverage rather than the complete local MLS and may understate true inventory. “Days listed” for active listings and “days to sell” for sold homes are different measures and are labeled separately. Town and county figures describe a market, not your house. Nothing here is an appraisal, a loan offer, a rate quote, or legal or financial advice. Southern Illinois Realty Experts is an Equal Housing Opportunity brokerage.