Progressive overload, applied to your house

The most useful thing the gym ever taught me is that you cannot skip the middle. You do not walk in cold and pull your best deadlift. You add a little, consistently, correctly, for a long time, and the number goes up almost as a side effect.

Selling a house is the same shape. Sellers who decide in March to list in June get a real result. Sellers who decide on Tuesday to list on Friday get whatever the market happens to hand them, which is usually a price reduction six weeks later.

Same with buying. The buyers who do well are almost never the ones who moved fastest. They are the ones who called a lender before they were emotionally involved, figured out their real number, spent a couple of weekends learning what their money buys in three different areas, and then moved decisively when the right one showed up. That decisiveness looks like luck. It is preparation.

The other half of the lesson is recovery. Escrow has stretches where nothing appears to be happening and the temptation is to push. Do not. The file is with the appraiser or the underwriter and pushing does not speed it up, it just makes you miserable for three weeks. Rest days are part of the program in the gym and patience is part of the program here.

Small correct steps, repeated, beat one big push. It has been true for everything I have ever gotten good at.