What made the market heading into 2023 so unusual wasn’t a crash or a boom — it was the speed of the swing between the two. From May 2020 through May 2022, I was telling every buyer the same thing: strip your contract of every contingency, come in with your best offer on day one, or don’t bother. Sellers were listing on a Thursday and fielding ten to fifteen offers by Tuesday. Then, in about nine months, mortgage rates went from an all-time historic low in January 2022 to the highest level in 20 years. The market went from a fire hose to a garden hose almost overnight. By the time we hit January 2023, I wasn’t dealing with one market anymore — I was dealing with two personalities living inside the same county, and giving buyers or sellers one-size-fits-all advice was actively bad advice.

What made this market period so different from the two years before it?

The defining feature was speed, not direction. Every market cycle eventually turns, but this one turned faster than anything I’d seen. For two straight years the rules were simple and absolute — highest offer wins, no contingencies, no exceptions. Then interest rates ripped higher across just two or three quarters of 2022, and the market stopped behaving like one single thing. Some homes still moved in one or two days with multiple offers. Others sat for three or four weeks with room to negotiate. Both were true at the same time, in the same zip codes, often on the same street. That’s not a boom and it’s not a bust. It’s a market split down the middle, and the only way to navigate it is case by case.

Why did interest rates move so much in such a short window?

Rates spiked because the cost of borrowing reset faster than buyers or sellers could adjust to it. Going from historic lows in January 2022 to 20-year highs by the back half of the year wasn’t a gradual drift — it was a shock to affordability that hit every buyer’s budget at once. A buyer who qualified for a certain price point in January was qualifying for meaningfully less by October, even with the same income and down payment. That kind of compression changes buyer behavior almost immediately: some buyers paused their search entirely, others adjusted their price range down, and the pool of active, qualified buyers shrank fast. If you want to see how this rate move compares historically, theNAR research and statistics hubtracks rate trends against buyer demand over time, and it’s worth a look for anyone trying to understand how unusual this stretch really was.

Did buyer demand actually bounce back in early 2023?

Yes, and the reason surprised even me. Part of the pickup in buyer activity as 2023 opened was simply rates easing off their October 2022 peak. But the bigger driver was the calendar turning over. A lot of buyers had put their entire lives on hold for six to eight months while rates shot up through Q2, Q3, and Q4 of 2022 — they weren’t rejecting the market, they were waiting it out. Once January hit, people who’d been sitting on the sidelines decided six percent was the new normal and got back in the game. That’s a psychological shift as much as a financial one. Buyers adjusted their expectations to the new reality instead of waiting for a return to 3% rates that wasn’t coming.

Was this actually the doom-and-gloom crash the media was describing?

No — and that gap between the headlines and the ground truth was the whole point of the video. Interest rates climbing from historic lows to 20-year highs in nine months sounds like a crash when you read it as a headline. On the ground in Montgomery County, it looked more like a market correcting itself into something workable. Homes that sat for three or four weeks became genuinely negotiable — buyers could get price reductions, closing cost credits, and the due diligence contingencies that had disappeared entirely in 2021. Meanwhile, well-priced, well-staged homes in high-demand areas were still moving in a day or two with multiple offers, just like the old days. That’s not collapse. That’s a market re-establishing a range of outcomes instead of one extreme outcome for everyone.

What did this period teach buyers about reading a split market?

The lesson was to match your strategy to the specific listing, not to last year’s market or this month’s headlines. A home that’s been sitting for three-plus weeks and checks most of your boxes is a home where you can likely negotiate — on price, on closing costs, on getting real inspection contingencies back into the contract. A home that just hit the market, is priced right, staged well, and sits in a high-demand pocket needs the exact opposite approach: your strongest offer, clean terms, and speed, the same playbook that won bidding wars in 2021. Buyers who applied one strategy to every listing lost out either way — overpaying for stale inventory or getting outbid on hot listings because they assumed the whole market had gone soft. Myguide to buying a homebreaks down how to read a listing’s actual position before you decide how aggressive to get.

What did this period teach sellers about pricing and prep?

The lesson for sellers was that the margin for error disappeared. At six percent interest instead of three percent, buyers weren’t looking at homes through rose-colored glasses anymore — they were comparing every listing against what their money actually bought them. That meant pricing accurately from day one mattered more than it had in two years, and so did spending real time and money on staging and touch-ups before listing. Sellers who tried to price at 2021 levels in a 2023 rate environment sat on the market, took price cuts anyway, and often netted less than if they’d priced correctly from the start. The sellers who adjusted early — realistic pricing, real prep, no assumptions carried over from the old market — were the ones who sold cleanly. Myguide to selling a homewalks through exactly how to price and prepare for conditions like these.

Why does a period like this matter for buyers and sellers today?

It matters because markets rarely move in one clean direction, and the buyers and sellers who do best are the ones who stop asking “is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market” and start asking “what is this specific listing telling me.” That habit — reading the data on a home-by-home basis instead of reacting to a headline — is exactly what got people through the whiplash of 2022 into 2023 without overpaying or underselling. It’s still the right habit today, no matter which direction rates or inventory happen to be moving.

FAQ

Was 2022-2023 a buyer’s market or a seller’s market in Montgomery County?

Neither, cleanly. It was a split market — some homes still moved fast with multiple offers, while others sat for weeks and became genuinely negotiable. The correct read depended on the specific listing, not a countywide label.

How much did interest rates actually change in this period?

Rates moved from an all-time historic low in January 2022 to the highest level in 20 years by later that year — a shift that happened in roughly nine months, not years.

Why did buyer activity pick back up in early 2023 if rates were still high?

Mostly a calendar effect. Many buyers had paused for six to eight months during the sharpest part of the rate spike, then re-entered the market once a new year began and six percent started to feel like the norm rather than a temporary spike.

Do sellers still need to strip contingencies and stage aggressively like in 2021?

Only in the highest-demand listings — homes priced well, staged well, and hitting the market fresh. Slower-moving listings gave buyers real room to negotiate on price, contingencies, and closing costs.

Where can I check current Montgomery County market conditions?

Mymarket stats pagehas the latest local numbers, or you can just reach out and I’ll walk you through what a specific listing or neighborhood is actually doing right now.

Markets like this reward people who read the specific listing in front of them instead of reacting to the headline of the month. If you’re trying to figure out whether today’s conditions favor negotiating or moving fast, let’s talk it through.

Book a free 30-minute strategy call with Kevin →

Or reach out directly any time — I’m always happy to help you think through a buying or selling decision. You can also head to mycontact pageto get in touch.

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Sources and next steps

Verified local sources:Maryland REALTORS housing statistics;GCAAR housing market reports;FRED 30-year mortgage rate series;Maryland SDAT real property search.

Related Kevin guides:market stats;relocation guide;book a call.

Watch the YouTube videoorbook a 30-minute strategy call with Kevin.

Expanded local research sources:GCAAR housing market reports;Maryland REALTORS housing statistics;Realtor.com Montgomery County market data;FRED 30-year mortgage rates;Maryland SDAT real property search;Zillow Montgomery County home values;Montgomery Planning development;Montgomery Planning development review;MCATLAS zoning map;Montgomery Planning data catalog;Montgomery County permits;Visit Montgomery travel guide;Visit Montgomery restaurant directory;Tripadvisor Montgomery County things to do.

Contextual links for this video

Kevin site links:home selling guide;home buying guide;market stats;DMV Housing Market 2026: Is a Crash Coming or Are the Numbers Telling a Different Story?;Zillow Just Banned Private Listings — Here’s What Home Buyers and Sellers Actually Need to Know.

Outside research links for this video:GCAAR housing market reports;Maryland REALTORS housing stats;Realtor.com Montgomery County market data;Reddit discussion search for this topic;Google context search for this video.

Kevin process link: why Kevin’s local process matters.