Why Year-Over-Year Market Data Misses the Real Story in Normalizing Markets

Written by:

Rudi Davis

Date:

12 Feb 2026

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Standard market metrics that compare today’s conditions with last year’s peak often fail to capture what is actually happening in markets that are moving from artificial highs back to normalcy, according to Matt Territo, a Northeast Florida real estate agent and team leader of Team Territo.

Recent data for Northeast Florida shows prices down three to six percent year over year, days on market rising, and inventory lower than a year ago. At first glance, these numbers suggest a weaker market with fewer homes for sale and properties taking longer to move. But Territo argues that these comparisons obscure the reality on the ground: they contrast a period of peak inflation with a correction phase without acknowledging that the former was unsustainable in the first place.

“We went from thirty days in inventory to sixteen months in inventory,” Territo says, describing how the market changed as interest rates climbed and the pandemic buying surge ended. “If a house is on the market two hundred days, it’s actually perceived as normal. But before, if you saw two hundred days, you’d think something was wrong with the house. Now, nothing went wrong – it’s just a different market.”

The Artificial Peak

The key context missing from year-over-year comparisons is that unsustainable forces drove last year’s market. Home prices had doubled since the onset of the pandemic. Interest rates hovered at 2.5 percent, making borrowing unusually cheap. Inventory dropped to less than a month’s supply. Multiple offers became the norm, and sellers could reject all concessions and still close quickly.

“We had no inventory, very low inventory, so that drives prices up,” Territo explains. “We had great interest rates, which drives prices up. And we had a lot of cash buyers.” In this environment, properties were sold for whatever the most willing buyer was willing to pay, rather than at prices set by actual competition or fair value.

When rates rose to six or seven percent, the pool of buyers shrank instantly. Inventory, which had been nearly nonexistent, ballooned to sixteen months’ supply. Homes that would have sold in days now sat for months. “Last year was definitely slowed down because of the talk of interest rates dropping, and they didn’t drop,” Territo says. “Nothing significant changed that would make someone buy.”

What the Data Misses

Year-over-year data frames this correction as a weakness, but Territo argues it marks a return to normal price discovery. “Prices have corrected,” he says. Prices were high. Once that inventory happens, that gives you an automatic correction in pricing, right? Because why is the house not selling? The buyer pool gets small.”

Sellers, however, often anchored their expectations to the peak. Many refused to adjust, leaving homes on the market for two hundred or three hundred days – not because the properties were flawed, but because asking prices no longer matched reality. “The mentality of ‘I’m losing money on this house’ is going away,” Territo says. “That mentality is gone.”

By January, the market adjusted again. Buyers who had been waiting for rates to fall accepted the new normal and began to act. Properties that had lingered for months quickly went under contract. “Right now, January, I feel that this is going to keep rolling through our market,” Territo says. “This year, prices have adjusted. People know what they are. And now that everything is going under contract, prices are going up a little bit.”

The Opportunity Cost of Waiting

For buyers, the timing of these shifts has real consequences. “Last year was definitely the year to buy,” Territo says. “It was the year to get the deal and close with some good equity in your home.” Buyers who recognized that the market correction was a normalization – not a crash – had the chance to buy at significantly lower prices, with little risk of further declines.

Most buyers, however, misinterpreted the signals. Seeing prices drop and days on market rise, they assumed further declines were coming and waited for interest rates to fall. “People were worried about interest rates and kept hearing that rates would come down, and that didn’t happen,” Territo says. “So the market definitely went down last year.”

By the time buyers realized the market had stabilized, inventory was moving again, and prices had stopped falling. The window to buy at corrected, lower prices had closed.

Why Context Matters More Than Metrics

The broader lesson is that market data is only meaningful when understood in context. Days on market means something very different in a market with one month of inventory than in one with sixteen months. A five percent price drop is not the same when it follows a fifty percent increase as when it follows years of stability.

“Market data does not share the real story, especially in markets such as ours,” Territo says. Agents and investors who understand these distinctions can make better decisions than those who react to headline numbers. A market in correction is not a market in decline; it is a market where prices have reset to reflect real conditions rather than artificial scarcity and unusually low interest rates.

A Better Model for Reading the Market

Territo’s approach is to look past simple year-over-year comparisons and focus on whether prices reflect genuine value, not just movement relative to a temporary high. “The market right now is perfect,” he says. “For where we’re at, things priced right, presented correctly, with the right upkeep, are selling well.”

Whether more agents and investors adopt this perspective depends on how quickly they recognize that comparisons to an artificial peak are misleading. As the market stabilizes, data will eventually reflect the new reality – prices will level off, days on market will return to a more typical range, and expectations will reset.

In the meantime, those who understand that correction is not decline – but a return to normal – stand to benefit the most. The agents and buyers who can interpret the context behind the numbers will identify opportunities that others, focused only on headline data, are likely to miss.