Tyce Ortman REALTOR

By Tyce Ortman | July 21, 2026

Here is the thing most Sioux Falls sellers get backwards: pricing high and pricing for top dollar are not the same strategy. They usually produce opposite results.

You have probably heard the pitch — “list it at $355,000, you can always come down.” It sounds like a free option. It is not. Every week your home sits above what buyers believe it is worth, you are paying for that ambition in carrying costs, in lost negotiating leverage, and eventually in a sale price below what you could have gotten in week one.

Let’s walk through the actual math on a Sioux Falls home, because the numbers make this decision much easier than the debate does.

What the Sioux Falls market is actually doing right now

You need the local context before you can price anything, and Sioux Falls is sending mixed signals that are easy to misread.

According to the Realtor Association of the Sioux Empire, June 2026 closed with a median sale price of $335,000, up 1.6% year over year. Inventory dropped to 892 homes, down 30% from 1,275 a year earlier, leaving about a 3.3-month supply. On paper, that is a seller’s market.

But closed sales fell to 275 from 322 the year before, and Sioux Falls homes have been averaging well over two months on market before going under contract. Sellers collected about 98.6% of original list price.

Read those together and you get the real picture: there are not many homes for sale, but buyers are not in a frenzy either. Rates in the mid-6s have made them deliberate. They will pay fair value for a well-presented home in Harrisburg, Tea, Brandon, or southwest Sioux Falls — and they will scroll right past an overpriced one, because they are running affordability math on every listing before they ever book a showing.

Low inventory does not rescue an overpriced house. It just means fewer homes are competing to disappoint the same buyer.

The real cost of holding out: a $335,000 example

Say your Sioux Falls home is genuinely worth $335,000. Here is how two pricing strategies play out.

First, know your carrying costs. On a $335,000 home in Minnehaha County, holding the property runs roughly:

• Property taxes: ~$330/month (about 1.18% of value annually)
• Homeowners insurance: ~$200/month
• Utilities: ~$250/month
• Maintenance, lawn, snow: ~$150/month
• Total without a mortgage: ~$930/month
• With a $180,000 mortgage at 5.5%: add ~$1,020/month, for roughly $1,950/month

Path A — price at market, $335,000. You get real showings in the first two weeks, take an offer around week three, and close at $330,300 (98.6% of list). Total time from listing to closing is about two months, so you carry roughly $1,860. You walk away from about $328,400 before commission and closing costs.

Path B — price ambitious, $354,900. That is about 6% over market. Showings are thin for a month, because your home is now competing with $355,000 homes instead of $335,000 homes — and it loses that comparison every time. You cut to $344,900 at week five. Still slow. You cut again to $334,900 at week ten. You finally go under contract around week thirteen and close at $325,000, because by now buyers have watched the price drop twice and they smell leverage. Five months of carrying costs: about $4,650. You walk away from roughly $320,350.

The ambitious strategy cost about $8,000 — and five extra months of your life spent keeping the house showing-ready.

This is not a Sioux Falls quirk. National 2026 data shows homes closing around the four-week mark sell for about 1.8% more relative to asking than the average home that month, while homes still going at eighteen weeks close 1.3 percentage points below average. That is a spread of more than three points — over $10,000 on a $335,000 home — determined largely by how you priced it on day one.

Why the first two weeks decide almost everything

When your listing hits the MLS, it pushes out to Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin, and it lands in the saved-search alerts of every buyer in the Sioux Falls metro watching your price band. Those alerts fire once.

That first wave is the most motivated, most qualified audience your home will ever get — people who have been looking for months and know instantly whether your house is priced fairly. Nationally in 2026, among homes that sold within a week, 44.3% sold above asking price, versus 17.1% of all homes.

Price above market and you spend that one-time burst of attention on the wrong buyers. By the time you correct the price six weeks later, the buyers who would have paid full value have already bought something in Tea or Brandon, and your listing carries a price-history trail that new buyers use as an opening argument.

There is also a mechanical problem with the high-then-reduce approach. Small cuts do almost nothing. A 2% trim on $354,900 is about $7,100 — enough to annoy you, not enough to move your home into a new search bracket. Buyers searching “up to $335,000” still never see it. Meaningful reductions in this market run 3% to 5%, and one decisive cut consistently outperforms a series of small ones.

When holding out actually makes sense

Pricing aggressively high is occasionally the right call. It is just rarer than sellers hope. Consider it when:

• Your home is genuinely hard to comp. An acreage outside Hartford, a lake property near Madison, a custom build with no real equivalent within a mile — when the comparable sales are thin, the market has to tell you the price, and that takes time.
• You have no deadline and low carrying costs. Mortgage paid off, no next purchase waiting, no relocation date. At $930/month you can afford to test a number. At $1,950/month with a home under contract in Harrisburg, you cannot.
• You are testing a specific, small premium. Listing 2% to 3% over market with a firm plan to correct at day fourteen is a defensible experiment. Listing 6% over and hoping is not a strategy.

Conversely, price at or slightly below market when you have a firm timeline, when you are carrying two housing payments, when your home is a common floor plan in a subdivision with active competing listings, or when you want negotiating leverage. That last one surprises people: in a market with a 3.3-month supply, a home priced just under value can draw multiple offers and sell above list. Competition, not your list price, is what produces top dollar.

What this looks like in a South Dakota closing

A few local mechanics worth knowing while you run your numbers.

Your sale price drives the South Dakota real estate transfer fee of $0.50 per $500 of value, paid by the seller — about $335 on a $335,000 sale. Modest, but it comes off your net at closing, handled by your title company (First Dakota Title in Sioux Falls, Abstract Title in Madison).

South Dakota property taxes are billed in arrears, meaning you are always paying for the prior year. At closing, your share is prorated by ownership days and shows up as a credit to the buyer. The longer you own the home, the larger that credit — one more quiet cost of extra market time that most sellers never see coming until they read the settlement statement.

And regardless of price strategy, the Seller’s Property Condition Disclosure Statement is required. If your home has a known issue, disclose it and price accordingly. Pricing at top dollar while hoping an inspection misses a failing roof is how deals fall apart in week eight — and that failed deal resets your days on market.

The honest summary: in Sioux Falls right now, “top dollar” and “sells reasonably fast” are the same outcome, not competing ones. Homes that sell near full price sell because they were priced where buyers were already looking. The way to get the most money is to be the obvious best value in your price band during the two weeks everyone is watching.

What that number is for your specific home — your finishes, your street, your competition this month — takes an actual comparative market analysis, not a Zestimate.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a house sit in Sioux Falls before I cut the price?
If you have not received a serious offer in fourteen to twenty-one days, price is the problem. Watch showing volume first: steady showings with no offers usually means condition or presentation, while few showings almost always means price. Make one meaningful cut of 3% to 5% rather than several small ones.

Does listing below market value mean I lose money?
Not necessarily. With Sioux Falls inventory down 30% year over year and about a 3.3-month supply, a home priced slightly under market can attract several buyers at once and sell at or above list. You are using price to create competition, and competition is what sets the final number.

How much do days on market actually cost a seller?
Two ways. Directly, carrying costs run roughly $930 per month on a $335,000 Sioux Falls home without a mortgage and closer to $1,950 with one. Indirectly, homes that linger past sixty days typically sell for about 5% less, since buyers treat long market time as a signal to negotiate hard.

Is late July a bad time to list in Sioux Falls?
It is past the May and June peak but far from bad. Buyers with school-year deadlines are still active into August, and with inventory down 30% you face less competition than spring sellers did. The seasonal factor matters far less than pricing correctly on day one.

Can I just start high and reduce if it does not sell?
You can, but it usually costs you. Your listing gets its largest audience in the first two weeks, and an above-market price wastes it. Price reductions also create a visible price history that buyers read as motivation, which weakens you in negotiation.

Thinking about listing in Sioux Falls?

The right list price is not a guess or a round number — it is a read on what buyers in your specific price band and part of the metro are actually paying this month, weighed against your timeline and your carrying costs.

If you’re buying or selling in Sioux Falls or the surrounding area, I’m happy to walk you through this. Reach out anytime: tyceortman@gmail.com

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About Tyce Ortman — Tyce Ortman is a real estate agent with eXp Realty serving the greater Sioux Falls, South Dakota area and the Madison community. He specializes in helping first-time home buyers and sellers, with a focus on pricing properties right and finding each client the perfect home. Connect with Tyce at tyceortman@gmail.com.