Look, I've watched enough clients try to "play the market" over the years to know one thing for certain: real estate isn't crypto. You can't check your phone at 2 AM, see Henderson home prices dipping three percent, and panic-sell your house. Thank goodness, right?

Here's the deal. Real estate moves like a glacier compared to cryptocurrency's rollercoaster. But here's what makes that deceptive—once our market actually shifts direction, you're already too late to do anything about it. By the time your neighbor mentions prices are dropping at the Saturday BBQ, the smart money already moved six months ago.

I saw this play out perfectly in 2021. Everyone kept waiting for Las Vegas home prices to "come back down." They'd call me saying "I'll wait another month." Then another. Then suddenly homes in Summerlin that were $450,000 hit $550,000, and those same people were kicking themselves. Real estate doesn't send you convenient alerts like your Coinbase app.

The tricky part? Our market gives signals, but they're subtle. Interest rates start ticking up. Inventory slowly increases from 2,800 homes to 4,200 homes over four months. Days on market creep from 12 to 24. These aren't dramatic overnight crashes—they're slow burns that most people completely miss while they're waiting for some obvious sign.

Smart investors in Las Vegas watch these indicators constantly. They're not trying to time the absolute bottom or top because that's literally impossible. Instead, they recognize favorable conditions and act. When rates dropped to 3% in 2020, they didn't wait to see if they'd hit 2.5%. They locked in and moved.

Here's my favorite analogy: timing real estate is like steering an aircraft carrier, not a jet ski. You need to start turning way before you think you should, because once you're heading toward the iceberg, good luck changing course quickly.

Right now in Las Vegas, we're seeing some interesting patterns. Inventory in areas like Henderson and North Las Vegas is creeping up. Some sellers are getting a reality check after two years of bidding wars. But we're not crashing—we're adjusting. The people recognizing this today will feel pretty clever in twelve months.

The bottom line? Stop trying to outsmart the market and start paying attention to it. Work with someone who actually watches this stuff daily (hi, that's me). Look at the fundamentals in your specific Vegas neighborhood—not just citywide statistics. And remember that in real estate, being approximately right at the right time beats being perfectly right too late.

The market doesn't care about your timing. It just keeps moving. Your job is deciding whether you're moving with it or watching from the sidelines, waiting for a "perfect moment" that'll never come.