Should You List Your Home During the Holidays?

Most people avoid selling their homes during the holidays. This is due to the fact that people are too preoccupied with planning vacations, buying gifts, cooking meals and attending parties during this time of the year. However, the old thinking doesn’t apply any longer – thanks to the Internet and smart phones.

The buying season is now year-round. While sales tend to drop off during the holidays, there are good reasons to go ahead and list your home now rather than wait until spring. Here are some of them.

Less competition 

Some sellers take their properties off the market during the holiday season. Others would wait until the after the first of the year before listing their homes. For that reason, serious buyers have fewer properties to choose from.

Because of the scarcity of similar, competitive listings, it puts you in a unique position of power. Less competition means you can have a higher asking price.

Buyers never stop looking online

A huge percentage of home buyers start looking at properties online, as opposed to seeing them in person. With the internet, tablets, smartphones and our always-on lifestyle, serious buyers are still trying to look at properties even during the holiday break. They would check out new listings while waiting for the kids’ school holiday show to start or before going to bed. These buyers are excited to see new and awesome homes on the market.

Buyers are motivated

Those who remain active in their searches and are still looking at properties around Christmas or New Years are undoubtedly serious buyers. Perhaps they’re relocating to the area and holiday season is the only time they can go to town. Or maybe they need to buy before the end of the year for tax reasons. Whatever the reason is, this often results to a quicker sale process.

Leverage the holiday spirit 

As anyone who’s bought or sold a property will tell you: emotion is a big part of the transaction. And there may no more powerful emotional pull than the feelings associated with winter holidays. So why not tap into this powerful emotional tone-setter and use it to sell your existing property? 

By aligning your property with an existing holiday motif, you can increase your chances of making a deal much to your liking.