As a Realtor I hear this refrain often at this time of year. The reasons usually involve the common perception that “things get slow” during the Holiday season coupled with the normal fear (or possibly laziness) that someone doesn’t want to deal with the “hassle” of selling their home at that time of the year.

It might be a slight “hassle” to have your house showroom ready during the Holidays AND there are fewer buyers than in the spring time–but there are several reasons to consider going against the flow and being “that guy” who has their house on the market during the Holidays.

Consider this–doesn’t your home look the best it will look all year long during the Holidays? Most people have decorations out and people coming by for parties and family get-togethers and so keep their home more immaculate than they normally do. Isn’t that a time you are doing the extras to keep your house nice anyway? Then why not have your home on the market so buyers can SEE that for themselves?

Another complaint I often hear is that sellers don’t want to deal with the hassle of having their house shown and having their schedule disrupted. I want to approach this idea from another angle…there are not as many buyers looking at homes on the market–so you likely won’t be bothered by showings every day. But Matt, isn’t that why it is a waste of time to even market my home during this time? No. Think about this…if someone IS actually looking for a home during the Holidays, they really need to move, like pronto. The catch is that most sellers have the “I’ll wait till after the Holidays” mentality and so these highly motivated buyers are only seeing a very few houses since most prospective sellers are waiting to list.

Wouldn’t the Holidays be a great time to proactively market to these highly motivated buyers? Of course it is. There may be more buyers in the spring–but as a seller, you’ll have more competition too.

Buyers and sellers that plan on listing or buying their home in the upcoming year usually make it their New Year’s Resolution to put their dreams into action. So what happens? My phone rings off the hook in the first 10 days of the year. I line up listings that I will be servicing and marketing for the next six months all in the first two to three weeks of the year (and even then it is usually to hear that they want to sell once the weather gets pretty in the spring). I also get buyers that want to start looking and sometimes do immediately. What homes are out there for them to view? The ones that didn’t sell to the highly motivated buyers over the Holidays. But didn’t you say that people want to sell their home at that time too Matt? Yes I did, but with the firehose volume of business that comes in that period of time it takes a while to get the listing up and running, photos taken, videos of the home edited, listing forms signed and turned in and the listing put into the MLS–so realistically it takes a few weeks to get a new listing up and running at that time of year. Buyers ready to rock after the first of the year–might not see the new listings that are soon to be listed because logistically the Realtors in the market just haven’t been able to get them online yet.

Isn’t that a great reason to already have had your home on the multiple listing service during the Holidays?

Use this time of year to do things differently from your competition (yes, other listings on the market ARE your competition) and you might be able to reach the goal of selling your house to a motivated buyer when other sellers are effectively out of the game.