For most people, the lead-up to the perennially-busy holiday season often involves a lot of frantic running around, whether it’s from store to store gift shopping or party to party celebrating.
For some homeowners, however, this time of year can also involve a lot of preparations of another kind.
While many people are out buying presents for family, friends, and loved ones, there are always a few holiday shoppers out there perusing local real estate markets for a new home. So, for those considering selling their homes, this is a great opportunity to capitalize on the holiday buyer market — however, this unique market is based around a very tight window of time.
If you’ve been considering selling your home in the near future, but aren’t quite sure how close you can go listing before the holidays, here’s our guide on how to navigate your holiday sale for the best results.
The Winter Real Estate Market
Traditionally speaking, the winter real estate market in Toronto (and Canada, for the most part) isn’t quite as active as other times of the year. Fall and spring are the seasons when the real estate market is most active commonly, with both winter and summer being the down-seasons.
Take one look out of your window on a blustery and miserable winter’s day and it’s easy to see why — not many people want to be out and about viewing properties and moving homes in the middle of a winter blizzard.
Instead, most prospective home buyers tend to be more concerned with how soon (and for how long) they can escape winter and book vacations to somewhere much warmer. For this reason, listing your home for sale between the months of January and March aren’t always the most popular, though doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be as successful. However, that’s another conversation in itself.
In order to sell your home for its maximum value, the very first thing you need to know is what its current market value is. To find out, visit our “What Is Your Home Worth?” page for more information.
The Holiday Real Estate Market
Although the holiday season technically does take place during winter, the holiday real estate market is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to its activity and performance compared to the rest of the winter season.
This is because right up until the winter break when schools and most offices close down for the holidays, the real estate market is still somewhat riding on the coattails of the highly active autumn market.
With momentum from the fall market still powering transactions through to the holiday season and with eager home buyers more motivated than ever to move homes before the worst of winter arrives, a lot of activity traditionally takes place in the market this time of year. Plus, the romantic element motivating buyers to purchase a new home in time for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Years’ celebrations cannot be understated either.
This means that if you’ve been wondering whether it’s still worth it sell your home after the fall market has ended and whether listing before the holidays is actually a good idea considering it’s a busy time of year, there’s still hope for you to sell your home yet.
At the time of writing, our local Toronto real estate market is still considered a hot Seller’s Market. To learn more about how you can navigate these conditions and make the best of your sale, read through our related blogs here:
When It’s Worth Waiting
With all of that in mind, however, sometimes it can be a better idea to wait until a later date to sell your home if your listing won’t be released publicly until too close to the thick of the holiday season.
One of the advantages of listing before the holidays is that sellers can take advantage of the spare time buyers have around the holidays. When prospective buyers have time off of work, they can fill that time by viewing listings online and visiting homes in person right up until they need to head back to work.
Additionally, with larger families spending more time around the house together during the holidays when parents are off of work and children are home from school, households can easily start to feel cramped for space. Buyers looking to up-size to suit the needs of their growing families will find that, with everyone home at the same time, their need to move into a larger home is even more pertinent.
However, considering the process of properly preparing a home for sale can take some time and that certain local market conditions can increase the average time on market it takes for a home to sell, it might be worth it to wait. If your listing won’t be able to go live with enough time to spare before the thick of the holidays, it might be in your best interest to wait momentarily.
When listing your home for sale, allowing yourself enough time to properly execute a thorough preparation strategy has direct results on the performance of your listing. If selling your home feels like you’re in a race against the clock, here are a few reasons Why You Might Want To Wait To List Your Home.
How Close Can You Go?
At Sidorova Inwood, our team’s comprehensive experience helping our selling clients list their homes for sale has proven to us that in order for our clients to achieve maximum results from their transaction, they need to bring their homes up to their highest possible standards first.
Of course, the extent of this preparation process varies from property to property depending on its current state, but generally always involves things like cleaning, decluttering, staging, painting, and a well-planned and executed marketing campaign.
Properly preparing your home to increase its market value before listing it for sale always requires at least a few time-proven tasks. Find out more about our current staging tips and why it’s always in your best interest to hire a full-service agent to help out here:
- 5 Home Staging Tips To Make Your Listing Look Like A Model Home
- Why You Should Hire A Full-Service Real Estate Agent
To complete these tasks properly in order to ensure your home sells for its highest possible value, the preparation process can take up to a few weeks to complete. That’s why for sellers hoping to capitalize on the niche holiday buyer market, listing well before the busiest stretch of the holiday season is highly advisable.
As a rough estimate, we would recommend listing before the holidays no later than early December. That will give your listing enough time to reach buyer audiences, gain traction in the market, and conclude a transaction before it’s time to go back to work in January.
At Sidorova Inwood, we’ve helped countless clients successfully sell their homes for top dollar, no matter which time of year it is. To find out more about our proven home selling process and the advantages of working with our team, have a look through our seller’s resources below.
