The call came on a Saturday afternoon. A first-time buyer had walked through a home in North Phoenix that morning and liked it well enough. By two o'clock, the listing agent had texted that another offer was coming in. By three, a well-meaning uncle had weighed in from the group chat: "If you don't move fast, it'll be gone." By six, they were asking whether to write an offer that night, over asking, waiving the inspection, before the house slipped away. Let's think through this.
That feeling has a name. It's FOMO, the fear of missing out, and in real estate it is not a character flaw. It's a brain response. Researchers who study panicked buying and competitive auctions have watched the same pattern repeat: when a resource feels scarce, when other people seem to want it, and when a clock is ticking, the body floods with arousal and people push past the limits they set for themselves. In auction after auction, bidders who wrote down a maximum in advance exceeded it under time pressure and competition. A home offer is an auction wearing a nicer outfit.
Let's zoom out for a minute and look at the market these buyers were standing in. The Phoenix metro median sale price is around $455,000 this fall, roughly flat year over year. The median home takes about two months to go under contract, and inventory has been building. In Peoria, homes are sitting 65 to 87 days on market with active listings up about 27 percent from last year. In Glendale, price cuts are running well above last fall. Even Scottsdale, the strongest pocket in the metro, is moving at 44 to 51 days on market, not hours. None of this means no home ever sells quickly, and a genuinely great home in the right pocket can still draw multiple offers. But the market that produced this kind of panic was 2021. This is a different season, and it rewards the buyer who notices.
Here's What I'd Be Asking
If we were standing in that kitchen together, here's what I'd be asking. Where is this urgency coming from, the market or the messenger? A listing agent's job includes creating interest, and a friend's advice comes from love, not data. Neither one is wrong, but neither one is evidence. Before urgency gets to make the decision, check the things that are actually verifiable: how many days has this home been on the market, has the price changed, are there recent comparable sales that support the number, and have offers actually come in? That is the market talking. Everything else is atmosphere.
That's not necessarily the right question either. "Will this house be gone by Friday?" is the question adrenaline wants you to ask. The better question is: if I miss this one, what does that actually cost me, and what is the next best thing waiting a week or a month from now? In a metro where homes sit for weeks, the honest answer is usually: very little, and plenty.
There Are a Few Things I'd Want You to Consider
Before you let a Sunday afternoon become a contract, there are a few things I'd want you to consider. Set your walk-away number before you feel the pressure, not during it. Decide what you are and are not willing to waive, especially the inspection, and know what each waiver is actually worth in dollars and risk. And write down what your next move is if this offer does not win, so that losing the house is a plan, not a crisis.
And always run the one question I ask more than any other: what's the risk if we're wrong? If you buy tonight and waive the inspection, and the roof needs work in year one, what does that do to your plan? If you overpay by twenty thousand dollars because you were afraid it would be gone, how long does that take to matter? If you wait, and the next home is better, what was the cost? Run that question on both sides, and the answer will tell you whether urgency is your advisor or your opponent.
Let's Separate Emotion From Fact
Scarcity is real in some pockets of this market. A well-priced home in a strong Scottsdale neighborhood can still move in days, and when a buyer genuinely wants that home, they should be prepared to act with speed and strength. But acting fast and abandoning your process are not the same thing. Speed means your financing is ready, your comparables are done, your walk-away number is set, and your contingencies are deliberate. That is compressing the process, not skipping it. The buyers who regret this market are almost never the ones who moved with preparation. They are the ones who skipped a step because a clock was ticking.
What FOMO Actually Costs
Here is what FOMO actually costs. It makes you overpay, because the number you are negotiating against is your own fear, not the value. It makes you waive protections, because skipping the inspection feels like the price of winning, until the day the roof says otherwise. It makes you sign on emotion, and then live with the reality, and the financial reality does not fade the way the excitement does. I have watched buyers regret a rushed decision for years, not because they bought a bad home, but because they bought it for the wrong reason, to keep from missing out.
The way to protect a decision like this is to make it before you need it. Write down, in advance, the maximum you will pay and why. List the protections you will not give up and the ones you might, and put a number on what each is worth. Decide what missing this particular home actually costs you. And if you are buying because of a life event, a growing family, a new job, a transition, anchor the decision to the life, not to the house. The home is a tool. The life is the point.
The market will hand you plenty of reasons to move fast, some of them honest and most of them not. Your job is not to ignore urgency. Your job is to check it against evidence before it gets to make the decision for you. When you do that, you can move fast when speed is real, and you can wait in peace when it isn't. That is the difference between a decision and a reaction.
If you are standing in a home right now feeling the pull to decide tonight, and you want someone on your side whose only job is to make sure you are deciding on evidence instead of urgency, I would welcome the call. Whether you are buying your first home in Peoria, moving up in Scottsdale, or navigating any of the life changes that bring people to the table, let's think through it together. That's what I'm here for.
Respectfully,
Andrew Glenn
Designated Broker, My Home Group