Tag Archives: economy

Are Real Estate Sales Truly Slower During the Holidays?

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You must have heard it at least once. That real estate is slower during the holidays. It’s an anecdotal statement. But as a real estate professional who has seen decades of transactions, let me give you my anecdotal account.

I have worked on holidays– Christmas, New Years, etc. When people have to move, they have to move. Job relocations, death in the family, etc. These things prompt action. And these events do not wait patiently for important holidays to pass. When these things occur, there will most certainly be real estate sales during the holiday.

While buyers are often still in the dark about the seller’s reasons for selling, some of the reasons for selling could be urgent. If buyers are patient enough, they might be able to have less competition when sending offers.

Sellers will use everything in their power to make the listing sell quickly at the highest price– order pre-inspections, pre sale escrow, make repairs, stage the home. They have tools to convert buyers with the help of their Realtor. With enough activity on a listing, it does not matter if the holiday is happening or not.

A holiday is a break of sorts, just like summer. Sometimes persons uses this opportunity to make life transitions while they have these breaks because they are too busy at work to do it any other time. When school is out, parents my find an opportunity to move and purchase before kids start again.

For people who have full control over their buying and selling activities, looking during the holiday appears as an opportunity, but not always. I have seen both quiet and highly active buying and selling periods during the holiday, so I always tell my clients to keep their expectations in check.

Home Sellers Want to Sell but Where Will they Go?

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Home sellers by now are bombarded with marketing materials asking them to sell their house in the wake of the inventory shortage. They might want to sell to tap into that equity, but they aren’t. Below I propose a theory of why they are not motivated to sell which pertains indirectly to the mortgage meltdown of 2007.

Where will they go? Sellers might have purchased 10 years back and they could be sitting on $400,000+ of equity. The only problem is: what can that $400,000 buy as their replacement home? Despite our recovery from the mortgage meltdown, the meltdown has permanently hampered the surplus income of many working families who lost equity in the 2008 crash. Despite them sitting on a large equity position, the rising values make their future housing less affordable. They may be able to purchase by using the equity as a down payment, but retirees with fixed incomes will not be allotted as much purchasing power as those with dual incomes.