To many
homeowners, selling a home during the holidays sounds like a stressful,
unproductive experience.
Real estate
trends have changed and the way consumers buy homes has shifted dramatically in
recent years. There are a lot of significant reasons today to have your home
listed for sale during the holidays. Here
are a few reasons the Holidays won't stop the housing market.
International Buyers Growing
Stronger
The number of homebuyers from
foreign nations has dramatically increased as the real estate market in the United States
has improved over the past few years. These buyers won't observe the same
calendar of events as most Americans. We’ve seen significant upticks in buyer
showings and home sales around holiday periods that traditionally were unofficial
vacation periods for the real estate industry. When the foreign buyer comes to
house hunt, American holidays are often not part of the scheduling process.
American Homeowner Mobility
is Increasing
Americans are far more mobile
in their lifestyles than they used to be. Occupations change at a higher rate.
Companies relocate more often. The many changes in technology create boom
scenarios that make one region flush with jobs after another.
Homebuyers employed in these
business sectors are called to move across the country at any point in the
year. Their employers often reimburse them through a relocation package to sell
their home and buy a new one. When they arrive in a new city, it doesn’t matter
if it’s January or July. They’re going to buy a home fairly quickly.
Seller Competition Is Lighter
During the Holidays
While these new crops of
international and mobile American homebuyers are searching for homes at odd
times of the year, home sellers are often still reluctant to list their homes
during the holidays. This creates a shortage of inventory and a strong seller’s
market in many cases. The home seller who is on the market in an area with very
few comparable homes can often stick strongly to the price they’re hoping to
get. Without a reasonable number of similar, competitive listings for buyers to
visit, the seller is in a unique position of power because of the scarcity of
comparable homes.
Holiday Home Shoppers Tend to
be More Motivated
Take the average American
homebuyer who isn’t relocating: they’d just like to buy a home in the town they
live in. Those who aren’t particularly motivated by time will often take a
break from searching during the holidays and start again in the spring.
Those homebuyers who remain
active in their searches, however, are the extremely motivated buyers. They’re
willing to alter their holiday schedules and brave bad weather to get into a
home. These are the kinds of buyers that home sellers dream about. They want to
move right away and are willing to spend significant money to relieve their
anxiousness about getting on with the home buying process as quickly as
possible.
Internet Searches During the
Holidays Surge
Many new homebuyers devote a
larger portion of their house hunting time during the holidays to searching
online - as opposed to seeing homes in person. The added convenience of
whittling down a list of preferred homes from the warmth of the buyer’s home
during bad weather makes real estate website traffic kick up significantly when
the overall market sales might be slowing down.
To have your home discovered
during this timeframe, it must be on the market. Word-of-mouth, drive-by
sightings, and other forms of direct-contact marketing diminish significantly
in effectiveness during bad weather periods. Homes advertised correctly online
during this time get significantly more exposure than the average home, and
those sellers that are taking a break from being on the market are as good as
non-existent to the online buyer.
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