Chapter Three: The MLS Is Not the Market — You Are! Mindset > MLS

This isn’t hype content.
It’s a framework.

This playbook is for homeowners who understand that their home isn’t just where they live. It’s likely their largest investment, and investments deserve clarity, preparation, and intentional decision-making.

Each chapter is designed to help you replace inherited assumptions with informed choices so you can move with confidence instead of confusion.

This chapter is a turning point.

Before we begin Due Diligence 101, we need to reset how you think about selling, the market, and your role in it, especially in a faster-moving, more transient housing culture.

The Core Belief That Quietly Undermines Homeowners

Most homeowners have been trained to believe something that sounds reasonable but quietly removes their agency:

“The market decides my home’s value…
and the MLS is where that happens.”

That belief creates insecurity around being “on the market.” It trains homeowners to wait for permission, outsource confidence, and treat selling like something that happens to them.

By the end of this chapter, you should understand three things clearly:

Why you, not the MLS, are the starting point of the market
Why selling didn’t begin when you listed, it began when you bought
Why preparation and due diligence, not exposure, are what build confidence and value

I’m not asking you to list anything today.

I’m asking you to think differently before you act.

The MLS Is Not the Market

Let’s say this plainly.

The MLS is not the market.
It never has been.

The MLS is a platform.
A distribution channel.
A visibility tool.

It does not create demand.
It does not assign value.
And it does not decide what your home is worth.

The market begins the moment you make a decision.

The MLS simply records activity after decisions are already in motion.

When homeowners believe the MLS is the market, they tend to wait, hesitate, and react. When they understand that they are the market, selling becomes intentional instead of reactive.

Selling Didn’t Start When You Listed

Here’s a truth most people never say out loud:

If this is not your forever home, then selling began the day you bought it.

You already thought like an investor when you purchased:

Will this resell?
Is this a good neighborhood?
Could we move if life changes?

Life, after all, is best summed up in three words: subject to change.

What shifted wasn’t your thinking.
It was your time horizon.

Twenty years ago, the average length of homeownership was about eight and a half years. Today, it’s closer to four.

Careers move faster.
Families relocate more often.
Remote work reshapes geography.

In that environment, preparing an optimized exit strategy isn’t pessimism.

It’s Information Age wisdom.

Selling isn’t failure.
It’s the completion of a shorter investment cycle.

The Make-Me-Move Price

Here’s a concept that lowers anxiety almost immediately.

Ask yourself:

“If someone offered me a price strong enough to justify moving in the next two to six months, would I at least consider it?”

That number is your make-me-move price.

It is not:

a listing price
a commitment
a promise

It’s a decision anchor.

Interestingly, this concept once existed directly on Zillow as a feature, a quiet acknowledgment that homeowners naturally think this way. The feature disappeared, but the logic behind it hasn’t.

Investors think this way constantly.

When my wife and I buy a home to flip, we publish it on at least 2 alternative platforms (Zillow and Facebook Marketplace usually) at our ARV (After Repair Value) or ISRP (Investor Suggested Retail Price) with our required profit margin baked in, even though we won’t be selling it for 3-12 months. Not to force a sale, but to manage & orient the property properly.

That orientation replaces fear with clarity.

And sometimes, we actually get them sold with our profit intact before ever beginning the work or get them sold for more when they would like to customize or secure it before we are to put it ‘on the market’!

(Side note: I have sold more houses on Facebook Marketplace in the last 6 years than I have on the MLS. Without ever having to deal with the headache that is Messenger…)

The Market Is a Process, Not an Event

Here’s the redefinition to carry forward:

The market is a process that unfolds over time, not an event on a website.

That process typically unfolds over three to six months and moves through five stages.

Stage 1: Decide

You decide your intent and your suggested retail or make-me-move price. Quietly. Deliberately.

Stage 2: Declare

You make intent audible and/or visible. Calmly. Clearly. Often beginning with family, neighbors, and trusted network communities.

Stage 3: Prepare (The Confidence Layer)

This is where most sellers either stabilize or spiral.

Preparation means understanding the asset, assembling facts, organizing documents, and answering questions before they’re asked.

This is where due diligence truly begins, before exposure.

Stage 4: Present

Only after preparation is solid does exposure make sense. Alternative platforms, targeted buyer pools, flat-fee exposure, or MLS, used intentionally and NEVER first.

The MLS confirms the market.
It does not create it.

Stage 5: Represent

Representation becomes a choice, not a default.

Self-representation, limited services, or full representation from a position of strength.

Prepared for a “Miracle”

Let me give you a real example.

Doug Schumacher is 74 years old, living in Bartlesville, OK. After getting married, he found himself with an extra condo and called me asking how he should sell it.

He was probably expecting me to recommend an agent.

Instead, I asked him a different question.

Doug lived in the same condo community. He wasn’t rushed. He was capable.

So we prepared.

We discussed pricing (he had thought ~$165,000, & I encouraged him to start high in pre-marketing with $175k), due diligence, contracts, and quiet exposure on alternative platforms. Doug even ordered a pre-inspection so he could understand the asset honestly.

And then something happened. Some lil bird heard from his inspector that he may consider selling.

A buyer reached out directly. A cash buyer. No panic. No scrambling.

Doug had called me in mid-November planning on selling in the Spring, closed before the end of the year, paid no agency fees, and netted roughly $20,000 more than he would have through a traditional listing.

Same condo.
Same market.
Different mindset.

Doug didn’t get lucky.

He was prepared.

Your Action Step

Write down two things:

Your make-me-move price
A simple list titled: “What I Know About This Property”

No formatting. No perfection. Just clarity. And also, a reality check on what you may not be as clear and defined as it should be…

You’re not listing.
You’re orienting.

Where This Is Going

Next chapter, we begin Due Diligence 101, where preparation becomes structured, repeatable, and even enjoyable.

You don’t need to list today.
You don’t need to decide everything today.

You just need to accept this truth:

The MLS is not the market.
You are.

I’m Rock Florida.
This is Real Estate WITHOUT Agents.