Threadbare Shag
If you’re “thinking about buying in two years,” this one’s for you. But also for anyone who ever waited too long, buried a parent, or wrote a term paper at a funeral home.
Are you thinking about buying or selling a home… in two years?
That seems to be the conversation I’ve been having a lot lately.
“We’re not ready yet, Steve. But… in two years, absolutely. You’re our guy!”
Cool cool. Let’s grab coffee and chat about it.
“Oh no, not today. I mean. Still two years out, right?!”
Okay. Let me tell you a secret about teaching college composition, because I did that for the past ten years. It’s a rough course—three essays in three months. And yeah, I know I write every flipping day. Your inbox is proof of that, right? But if you hated writing? Those three essays were a nightmare.
And that last essay? Students hated me cause I assigned 3,000 words. The first two were only 1,500, so that last one, that 3,000 words, felt like an ambush. Plus I made them choose topics that were local and actionable. No don’t declaw cats essays. No gun control rants. I wanted them writing about the graffiti problem in their own damn town, or the green garbage bags Dover forces you to use (those tear-prone, planet-killing monstrosities that spew garbage across the street if they happen to be sneezed on just a little). Then I’d ask, who do you talk to change that policy? What’s the real issue? And what’s the solution?
I assigned that last essay right at the beginning of the semester because I knew come finals week, they’d be sweating.
“Why is this so hard? I don’t have a topic! Nothing happens in my town!”
Well. I assigned that essay three months ago. Why didn’t you start then?
Because I had midterms and those other two essays and work and family. And remember, I got arrested that one weekend. My math class was really, really hard. Or, my favorite, my grandfather died.1 Or, my second favorite, I forgot. They always had an excuse.
But. Let me tell you something else: you can have reasons or you can have results, but you can’t have both. Why didn’t you start on that hard essay, the one that was worth the most points earlier?
Two years is nothing. It’s a sneeze in the wind. Two years out is when you should be signing your Realtor, not a month before, not a week before. Because by the time you are ready, it’s finals week. The hard essay is due. And the neighborhood you wanted? Already under contract. So yeah, let’s talk now while you’ve still got the time to think, to plan, to get it right. Cause your future-you will thank you. Just like those students who—begrudgingly—admitted I was right.
BUYERS: Why Two Years Is the Perfect Time to Start
Strategy beats speed. You’re not just buying a house. You’re planning a life. Start early, and your agent can help shape that life with you.
Market fluency takes time. Watching listings for a few weeks is not the same as learning a market. A buyer two years out who studies now is dangerous later—in the best way.
You get access to off-market and whisper listings. These exist. But only if you’re known and trusted.
You're probably wrong about what you can afford. Up or down. One early conversation with a lender changes the whole picture.
You can fix financing issues. Credit score. DTI. Saving for a down payment. It’s way easier to tackle this over 24 months than 2.
You’re not in a rush, so you can learn. Ask dumb questions. Get smart answers. No pressure.
You don't pay me anyway. Signing an exclusive buyer agreement doesn’t cost you anything up front. You pay me when you buy. You can fire me anytime. Same for me with you.
SELLERS: Your Two-Year Advantage
If you’re buying after you sell, everything above still applies. And, sellers have their own prep game:
Seasonal photography is a marketing weapon. Your hydrangeas bloom in July? Get that photo now. Don’t wait until November when everything’s dead.
Decluttering is slow magic. One junk drawer at a time. One closet per month. You can actually enjoy this process if you start now.
You need a financial plan for your proceeds. What happens to that equity? Buying? Investing? Paying off debt? Gifting to kids? A great listing agent should bring in a financial advisor if needed.
Smart repairs, not HGTV drama. A good agent will help you prioritize fixes that matter and avoid unnecessary renovations. (Spoiler: your kitchen cabinets might just need paint.)
Landscaping takes time. That curb appeal shot needs to be cultivated, not Photoshopped.
Staging can start early. You don’t need to rent furniture, but you do need to know what to keep, what to donate, and what to quietly remove.
You might need a title check. Refinanced twice? Built an addition? Your title might be a mess. Better to find that out now.
The longer your lead time, the smoother the launch. More time = better marketing, smarter pricing, and no panic-mode photography.
Emotional readiness is real. You’re not just selling a house. You’re saying goodbye to a version of your life. That takes time.
You can tell a better story. And this might be my favorite: You can photograph your home with actual life inside. Not sterile catalog shots. But real moments:
A steaming mug on a snowy porch.
A book half-open on a bench.
A rake leaning against a tree in fall.
You’re not selling square footage. You’re selling a future narrative that someone can step up into and be their own protagonist.
A QUICK NOTE ABOUT TODAY’S FOOTNOTE: Many of my readers are fellow Realtors. And if you are a Realtor and found value in this post, please feel free to plagiarize for your nefarious purposes. All I ask is that you somehow message me about how you used the essay.
The Bare Bones Numbers 💀📉
📍 Statewide New Hampshire Housing Market
Active Listings: 2,530
Closed Sales (Last 6 Months): 3,746
Pending Sales: 864
Median Days on Market (DOM): 6
Inventory: 4.05 months
Affordability Index: 61
📍 Seacoast Area
Active Listings: 393
Closed Transactions (Last 6 Months): 731
Pending Transactions: 195
Days on Market (DOM):
Highest: 150
Average: 12
Median: 6
Pricing Trends:
Lowest List Price: $145,000
Lowest Sold Price: $135,000
Average List Price: $764,881
Average Sold Price: $761,326
Median List Price: $625,000
Median Sold Price: $630,000
📍 Tri-City Area (Dover, Somersworth, Rochester)
Active Listings: 75
📍 Durham, Newmarket, Madbury & Lee
Active Listings: 20
📍 Portsmouth & Newington
Active Listings: 35
PROPERTY OF THE WEEK AND OPEN HOUSE
🛏️3 Beds, 🛁2 Baths, 📏1,336 sq ft, $799,900
OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY 11:00AM-1:00PM
Estimated payment: $5,704/mo
Estimation provided by Keller Williams Realty Inc.
Contact a mortgage broker today!
Dead-end street. Full-sun backyard. 6 minutes to downtown. Boom.
Tucked at the end of a quiet street in one of Portsmouth’s best-kept pockets, 25 Sims Ave is the kind of place that doesn’t shout—but keeps getting better the longer you stay. Single-level living, natural light for days, real hardwood floors, and a kitchen with stainless steel finishes that spark joy.
The 3BR / 1.5BA layout is easy to live in, and easy to love—and the attached garage and sunny back deck seal the deal.
Walk in this weekend and picture: your first home, your last downsize, your summer dinner parties under a string of lights. This home fits.
Just minutes to downtown, but tucked away from the noise.
Come feel it for yourself.
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I’m not proud but maybe I am a little bit. I had about 10 pages or so to finish up on my graduate thesis at the University of Wyoming when my father-in-law passed away in Ohio. The airline lost my laptop because I was such a basket case, I checked it as a bag. Lost all of my clothes as well. I remember buying shirt and tie from Kmart to attend the funeral, and I felt so stupid dressed in a blue light special and tennis shoes, standing in the reception line with my wife and her eight other siblings, along with their spouses, all dressed in neat black. I borrowed my parents’ computers and wrote those last ten pages. And listen, I was pretty broken up about Tony’s passing. I loved his stories about collecting sap from maple trees and walking to school as a kid. I listened to those stories over and over. It was a really hard thing, his death.
Later, when his great-grandson bought the farm and renovated the place and shared before and after photos on the Facegramtok I was blown away because I remembered shag carpeting that still smelled of the hog farm they had long since abandoned in the late 1970s, early ‘80s. My wife’s essays about butchering days and how violent life on the farm was are gruesomely elegant and haunting. And, that was my first date with Mary on that shag carpeting, sitting on a couch in the mid 1990s watching a rented VHS of Casablanca on a TV with legs the whole house smelling a little faint, sweet pungent of pig manure even though it’d been near a decade since the farm had seen a hog.
When I saw the renovation photos, I just commented, thank god, that house really needed a redo. Her one brother (unnamed to protect the innocent) commented back in all caps HAVEN’T YOU HEARD NOT TO SPEAK BADLY ABOUT THE DECEASED?!
I didn’t think I had. But that shag carpeting, it wasn’t that it was shag, I’ve been in some very nice homes with some very nice shag, heck I have shag in my office on purpose, but after nine kids and the boys coming in muddied from the farm the shag in that house was threadbare and you’ve never seen anything so sad as threadbare shag.
That all being said. I wrote those last ten pages during my father-in-law’s funeral because no one in grad school cared that my father-in-law passed. My brother-in-law did. My wife did. I did. But the machine that is academia, the machine that is capitalism and our economy will never care about you more than you.