Selling Your Home During Christmas Holidays

When you’re selling your home, apart from other factors, you should also think about the best time to put your house on the market. In some cases, for various reasons, you may wonder whether selling your home during Christmas holidays is a good idea. This question is not an easy one to answer. Selling your home during Christmas will provide you with some advantages, but there are also disadvantages that may make you want to wait until after the holiday season.

The advantages of selling your home during Christmas holidays

The biggest advantage of selling your home during Christmas is that not so many people are selling their homes at this time. While there are also fewer people who are looking at listings during the holiday season, you will more easily find interested buyers among those people who are looking at homes in this period. As you will be facing less competition, it will be easier to find buyers and get a good price. In fact, there’s even a chance of a bidding war occurring, which may land you a better price than what you originally asked for.

This is especially true if you are living in an area that doesn’t get much snow. When there’s a lot of snow, people are less likely to go looking at homes. While moving anywhere in Arizona can be easy, it is certainly easier when the weather is clear.

Snow makes people happy, but also less likely to go looking at homes.

What’s more, potential buyers who are interested in looking at homes at this time of the year tend to be more eager to buy. Generally speaking, the holiday season is an unusual time for buying homes, so if someone is interested in your home at Christmas, there’s a good chance that this person is a serious buyer. They also may be ready to settle for some compromises, which can be especially useful if your property comes with some drawbacks (for example, it may be located in an unpopular part of town).

As buyers usually want to settle down in their new homes before New Year’s Eve, this is another factor that could land you a better deal. Such buyers won’t have a lot of time to bargain and think about their options, which will, in turn, make them want to expedite the process.

The disadvantages of selling your home during Christmas holidays

Now, let’s take a look at the disadvantages of selling your home during the holiday season. First of all, some of the benefits we’ve mentioned could actually turn out to be disadvantages. Certainly, fewer people are looking for homes during the holiday season, and there’s a chance that you might miss the best offer you could’ve gotten because this hypothetical buyer was on vacation.

Some parts of Arizona see more snow than others, so this could be another potential drawback, depending on your location. Also, while your buyer may wish to close the deal before New Year’s Eve, that may be impossible to do, especially if you come to an agreement mid-December. In case that happens, you’ll most likely have to wait until January before finally selling the property. Depending on your situation, this may or may not suit you.

Selling a home without a reliable real estate agent is not recommended. Unfortunately, if you will be selling your home during the Christmas season, it may be hard to find such an agent then (real estate agents go on vacation too!).

Selling your home during the Christmas holiday will be much easier with the help of a good real estate agent

Finally, as we said, buying and selling homes during the holiday season is slightly unusual. This could make potential buyers suspect that there’s something wrong with your home, or it could make them suspicious in some other way. Moreover, they may come to the conclusion that you’re desperate to sell, which means that such buyers will want to bargain and try to get you to lower the price as much as they can.

Preparing your home for buyers during the holiday season

No matter the time of year, the way your home looks when potential buyers come to visit will certainly influence their decision. Generally speaking, it is always a good idea to minimize the number of your belongings when buyers come to look at your property. And when it’s Christmas holidays we’re talking about, this also means that you shouldn’t go all across the board with Christmas decorations!

With a large number of decorations scattered all over the place, buyers will have a hard time imagining what your home will look like when their belongings and decorations are in place. In other words, they’ll have a hard time seeing it as their future home, which may influence their decision to keep searching for homes. Too many decorations will also make the property appear less spacious.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have any decorations at all. In fact, finding the right balance between an excessive amount of decorations and no decorations at all can even tip the scales in your favor when it’s time to seal the deal. Making your home appear festive while not being overburdened should make the buyers feel nice and comfortable while looking at your home. And that is a feeling that they will remember when they’re thinking about their options.

Offering Christmas cookies will make buyers remember your home more fondly.

So, instead of blocking appealing features such as stained glass windows and fireplace mantels, offer your guests some cookies and apple cider. Instead of hanging banners, place some evergreen garlands. In this situation, less is indeed more.

Final thoughts

So, as you can see, this question involves many factors, and the answer will depend on your particular situation. As we said, we certainly recommend hiring a good real estate agent and working with him/her in order to come up with an optimal plan of action.

Selling your home during Christmas holidays can go either way; you may be happy that you have decided to sell at this time, but this decision could also be the wrong one to make. Whatever you decide, we wish you happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!