Selling and Buying a Home During the Holidays: The Real Story

Is it a correct observation or a misconception that it is a disadvantage to list your home for sale during the holiday period?

Conventional belief has generally been that November-December is the least desirable time of the year to have a home on the market.

There are many reasons behind this thinking. For example, people go on vacation, the holidays distract attention and bad weather may inhibit some buyers. In addition, many real estate agents discourage home sellers from winter listings.

Traditional Approach to Holiday Selling

A long-standing practice among real estate professionals is to take homes off the market before Thanksgiving.

This allows real estate professionals to “refresh” the listing for the New Year and then relist it in the spring.

Agents may also tell homeowners who are thinking of putting their home on the market to wait until March, since more homes sell better at that time of the year.

Advantages to Holiday Selling

The fact is if someone wants to sell their home, there are a number of reasons and advantages to putting it on the market during the end-of-year winter season.

More than 90 percent of the homebuyers do their initial searching online and mostly do so in the evenings.

Even if they are out of town visiting relatives, they have Internet access.

A growing number of home seekers are far more mobile, and are looking for homes more frequently as relocation for professional reasons is imperative.

People who are searching online can only look at the current inventory available.

These buyers will choose from the homes that are actively listed at the time they are in the market to buy. Therefore, those that are not listed will miss consideration.

There may be fewer showings during November and December than at many other times of the year. However, the potential buyers who are looking at homes during this time period may be more motivated and serious about buying.

Some buyers will actually have more time to look at homes during the holiday period.

With the lower inventory level, these buyers have fewer homes from which to select. This means that any seller whose home is on the market during the holiday season will have less competition.

A Review of Past Holiday Season Sales

To validate the suggestion that the end of year period is really an advantageous time to be on the market, a review of past sales is in order.

A look at the holiday season home sales in Pacific Palisades in 2012 provides substantial evidence that this is true.

In the Palisades in 2012, an average of 20 new escrows were opened each of the two winter months versus 25 per month averaged the preceding 10 months.

Further analysis revealed that 25 percent of those winter contracts were put on the market and entered escrow between mid-November and January 1 and involved multiple offers.

Having reviewed my own sales record, we have found that in 14 of the last 18 years, I have had transactions begin during that holiday period.

Though it may seem counterintuitive, it well may be that the end of the year winter season is an excellent time to be in the marketplace.

For the past 27 years, Michael Edlen has tracked local statistics and trends, and provides real estate counseling services to prospective buyers and sellers. More tips and information are available at MichaelEdlen.com. He can be reached at (310) 230-7373 or michael@michaeledlen.com.