Is Selbyville a Modest Town or an Expensive One? Reading Several Medians and a December Realtor.com Page

Why does a small town produce a spread of $204,000?

Start with the arithmetic. The lowest figure, Redfin's $396,000, is 66% of Realtor.com's $600,000. Put the other way, the Realtor.com figure is 1.52 times the Redfin figure. Resideline's $421,665 is 70.3% of $600,000, and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices figure of $549,990 is 91.7% of it. These percentages are this brief's arithmetic. They describe four numbers, not four markets, and the useful question is what each number counts.

Redfin and Resideline report sold prices. Realtor.com's page labels its figure a median home price and its own text calls it a median home sale price, but the page also compares it with a median listing price in a chart, and the community table beneath it also lists a listing price per square foot. This brief cannot tell from the page alone whether the headline is a sold figure or a list figure, and it does not claim to. The Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices page says median sales price without a period. RealtyTrac gives an estimated value, which is a model output, and a separate sold median.

Resideline adds the fact that matters most for an owner who is thinking about a private sale. It says 13% of the 84 closings it tracked never appeared on a listing service. They include foreclosure deeds, estate and family transfers and other off-market sales that portal medians leave out. It also says that the median of listed sales alone was $425,000, which is only $3,335 above its all-sales figure, a gap of 0.8%. That tells us that in this sample the off-market share did not move the median much. It does not tell us what any one private sale would fetch.

The honest reading is that a Selbyville median in the range of $400,000 to $600,000 is supported by at least one source, and that a seller who quotes one number without naming the source and the period is choosing it. A buyer who wants a low figure can cite Redfin. A seller who wants a high figure can cite Realtor.com. Neither is lying, and both are leaving out the date.

Which of these pages are older than they look?

The Realtor.com page states its own reporting period: December 2025. The pages in this series were read in October 2026, so the figures are about nine months old. They include 256 active listings and a median of 98 days on market. A seller who reads those today is reading last winter, when seasonal homes in a beach town are usually the least active, and this brief does not claim to know how the figures would differ now. It says only that the page is not current.

The Redfin page is older still. Its headline gives a median of $396,000 for the last month and a sales count of 13, and its migration note refers to January to March 2025. Its list of recently sold homes shows sales dated April 23 and April 24, 2025, including one at $1,760,000, 7% over list, and one at $1,185,000. This brief infers that the page was captured in spring 2025 and has not been refreshed in the copy we read. A median built on 13 sales moves a great deal when one sale at $1,760,000 enters or leaves, which is a reason to give it little weight.

The RealtyTrac page is current on one table and inconsistent on another. Its summary table compares August 2025 with July 2026 and shows homes for sale up 88.16%, from 321 to 604, and homes sold down 25.53%, from 188 to 140. Both percentages check against the counts. But the page's own opening paragraph says the number of current listings is 435, and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices page shows 181 active listings with no date. Three counts of homes for sale, 181, 435 and 604, cannot all describe the same town on the same day.

Resideline is the only page of the five that carries a recent date, updated October 3, 2026. That makes it the freshest source and also a small sample. This brief gives it the most weight on timing and the least on precision, and tells the reader why.

What does the Realtor.com community table show?

The Realtor.com page lists named communities with a median home price and a count of homes for sale. Bayside has a median of $674,000 and 62 homes for sale. The Peninsula has $605,000 and 46. Glen Riddle has $750,000 and 24. Coastal Club has $834,900 and 9. Newtown, North Division has $299,995 and 9, and Church Street, Doverdale has $199,450 and 10. The page also lists six smaller areas with between 1 and 7 homes each.

These counts add up to 177 homes, which is 69.1% of the page's headline count of 256. Bayside and The Peninsula alone account for 108 homes, or 42.2% of the headline. The highest community median, $834,900, is 4.2 times the lowest, $199,450. The figures are this brief's arithmetic. A seller whose home is in a golf or marina community should look at the community row, not the town figure, and a seller on a street in the historic part of town should do the same.

The table also shows why a town median is hard to use. A town median of $600,000 sits between a $199,450 community and an $834,900 community, and it is not typical of either. It is closest to The Peninsula at $605,000. This is a property of medians, not a flaw in the page. The median is the middle of a mixed set.

Source: Realtor.com as cited. The 177, 69.1%, 108, 42.2% and 4.2 times are this brief's arithmetic. Commercial content; not independently verified.

Do the speed figures agree?

Not closely. Realtor.com shows a median of 98 days on market for December 2025, up 13.95% on the year. Redfin shows 64 days to pending in what this brief reads as a spring 2025 snapshot, and says that hot homes go pending in about 31 days. Resideline measured something else: a median of 38 days from contract to closing across 38 closings. Those are three stages of a sale, and they are not interchangeable.

The stages matter to an owner. Days on market runs from the listing to the contract. Days to pending is close to the same stage. Contract to closing is the stretch after the buyer is found, and it covers the buyer's financing, the inspection and any repairs. A home that sits for 98 days and then closes in 38 has taken about 136 days from the day it was listed, which is this brief's arithmetic and which adds a median of one stage to a median of another, so it is an illustration and not a measured total.

The sale-to-list ratio is more consistent. Realtor.com's 98% means homes sold 2.16% below the asking price on average in December 2025. Redfin says about 1% below list in its snapshot. Both point to discounts of a small amount, which is plausible in a market with few forced sellers. They say nothing about how long a seller waited to get there.

What does the Census say about vacancy and age of homes?

The Census profile for the postal area gives a population of 10,862, which is 3.9 times the town population of 2,810 shown by the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices page. The postal area is therefore not the town, and this brief treats the Census figures as a description of the surrounding area that includes the community of Selbyville. The population ratio is this brief's arithmetic, and the town figure on that page is undated.

The postal area has 9,021 housing units, of which 5,085 are occupied and 3,936 are vacant. That is 43.6% vacant. The Census counts seasonal and second homes as vacant, so this brief infers that a large part of the vacancy is part-time use by owners who live elsewhere. Of the 5,085 occupied homes, 4,484 are owner-occupied, or 88.2%, and 601 are rented. Median household income is $88,568, median gross rent is $1,037 and the median value of an owner-occupied home is $462,700, with a margin of error of $16,409.

The housing is young. The median year built is 2003. Homes built in the 2000s, 2010s and since 2020 number 2,486, 2,169 and 642, which together are 5,297 homes, or 58.7% of all units. Homes built before 1980 are 1,206, or 13.4%. For an owner, this means that most comparable homes were built in the last twenty-five years, which tends to reduce the number of very old systems but does not remove the need for repairs on a home with a salt air history. That last point is a general observation and not a measured one.

The Census median value of $462,700 for owner-occupied homes sits between Resideline's $421,665 and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices' $549,990. It comes from owners' own estimates of what their homes would sell for, collected over five years, so it is not a sold figure and should not be read as one.

Source: the five pages as cited. The 66%, 1.52 times, 70.3%, 91.7% and 0.8% figures are this brief's arithmetic. The reading of the Redfin date is this brief's inference. Commercial content; not independently verified.

What do the Sussex County series add?

Realtor.com publishes county series through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Sussex County covers Selbyville along with the rest of coastal Delaware. The county median days on market rose from 61 in May to 74 in September, up 21.3% in four months (Realtor.com, days on market). The percentage is this brief's arithmetic. That is a slower market than it was in spring, and it matches the direction of the 98 days shown on the older town page, though the numbers differ.

Active listings in the county were 1,881 in April and 1,952 in August, up 3.8% (Realtor.com, active listings). The county median listing price was $559,450 in May and $550,000 in September, down 1.7% (Realtor.com, median listing price). That county figure of $550,000 is $50,000 below the town page's $600,000 from December and is almost exactly the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices median of $549,990. This brief draws no conclusion from that match.

The count of homes with a price reduction was 560 in April, 644 at its June peak and 584 in August (Realtor.com, price reduced count). In August, 584 reductions against 1,952 active listings is 29.9%, which is this brief's arithmetic. Roughly three in ten listings in the county had a cut at that point. For a seller, that is the cost of a public clock: the longer a home is listed, the more likely a cut becomes part of the story that buyers read.

These are county figures, not Selbyville figures. The series titles were checked on their series pages. Where the town and the county differ, the town is smaller and has a higher share of newer homes and second homes, which is an inference from the Census cut above. Readers comparing markets can also read the Vero Beach brief and the Bellevue brief.

Source: Realtor.com series published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis as cited. The 21.3%, 3.8%, 1.7% and 29.9% are this brief's arithmetic. The series names were checked against the series pages.

What should an owner ask, and what does a private sale change?

Ask which source a number comes from, what period it covers and how many sales sit behind it. A median of 13 sales, one of 84 and one of 351 are not equally reliable. Ask whether the figure is a list price, a sold price or a model estimate. Ask whether the area is the town, the postal area or the county, because the three give different populations and different mixes. Ask for the date, and be wary of any page that does not give one.

A private sale changes how a home reaches a buyer. With Maison Off-Market there are no showings and no neighbors talking about a sale, the closing date can be flexible so that an owner has time to find a new home, there are no commission costs, there are no closing costs and there are no inspections or repairs. This brief does not claim that a private sale always brings a higher price than a public listing. It says that those five features change what a seller has to go through.

Fee arithmetic shows why the commission point matters, without assuming any rate. Each 1% of a sale price is $3,960 at $396,000, $4,217 at $421,665 and $6,000 at $600,000. At 3% those amounts are $11,880, $12,650 and $18,000. At 5% they are $19,800, $21,083 and $30,000. These are illustrations of what a percentage means on each of the figures in this brief, and they are not a statement of what any agent charges or what any sale would cost.

If you are weighing a sale of a Selbyville home, one conversation costs nothing and obliges you to nothing. We ask about the home, the timing you would like and what you would need from a buyer, and we say plainly whether a private sale fits.

If you would like a private, no-obligation offer for a Selbyville home, call 401-219-4207 or use the contact form on this site.

Methodology and limitations

Median prices, days on market, sale-to-list ratios and listing counts come from Redfin's town page, Resideline's town report updated October 3, 2026, a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices overview, Realtor.com's town page with indicators as of December 2025, and RealtyTrac's market trends page with data to July 2026. The sources cover different areas and periods, and most are commercial pages, so they are not independent.

Census figures come from the American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year estimates for the postal area, through Census Reporter. County series are Realtor.com data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for Sussex County, Delaware, and the series titles were checked on the series pages. Percentages, gaps, ratios and fee amounts are this brief's own arithmetic and are labeled as such. Where a reading goes beyond what a page says, it is called an inference. No agent contact details or street addresses from the pages are reproduced.

Conclusion

The Selbyville record shows medians from $396,000 to $600,000, depending on whose page you read and when it was captured. One page is from December 2025, one appears to be from spring 2025, one gives no date and one is current but rests on 84 closings. The Census shows a postal area in which 43.6% of homes are vacant and 58.7% were built since 2000.

It does not fix a price for any one home. The choice between a public listing and a private sale comes down to whether an owner would rather meet showings, price cuts and a public clock, or sell quietly on a date that suits them. Maison Off-Market speaks only to sellers, and a conversation costs nothing.