It can feel frustrating -- or even a bit disheartening -- if your home has been on the market for a few weeks and it hasn't gone under contract. Maybe you've only had a handful of showings. Maybe none. It's easy to fall into a loop of second-guessing:

Why hasn't anyone made an offer? What's wrong with my house? Will it ever sell?

If you've found yourself there, one helpful exercise is to zoom out a bit and look at the broader market around you. Instead of just asking why didn't my home sell, ask what did sell?

To really make sense of how your home is performing on the market, it helps to compare it to similar homes nearby.

Let's say your home is in the XYZ school district and it's priced between $400K and $500K. A good question to ask is:

In the past two weeks, what homes in this same price range and school district have gone under contract?

This research can be very helpful...

If several homes like yours have gone under contract recently -- but yours hasn't -- it may be time to take a closer look at your pricing, condition, or marketing strategy.

On the other hand, if very few homes like yours have gone under contract, then it may just be a sign that buyer activity in this market segment is just slower right now.

Pausing to take this broader look at the market can help us have a better sense of what buyers are actually doing (or not doing) these days to help us decide what (if anything) we might want to change.