The Most Important Day in Real Estate
No beating around the bush here. Just good old fashioned urgency. It’s January 1st.
That’s right. New Year’s Day. And it’s important you know that, because if you’re planning on selling, you are missing out if you don’t have your house listed before that day.
 | “New Year’s Day? Seriously?” Now, hear me out. I’ve brought the stats, and I have pictures. What does everyone do on New Year’s Day? Make New Year Resolutions. One of those Resolutions is often “Buy a house”. How do I know this? Google Trends tracks the popularity of search terms used on its platform and look at this… |
Below is the popularity of the search terms “Real Estate” in blue, and “Homes for Sale” in red. You can see them dipping consistently year after year, and shooting up like a little shelf on the same day, every single year. January 1st.
And that’s just the past 5 years. If we go back further, it’s the same story.
I have rarely seen a more consistent graph that goes back 20 years as this one.
 | “Okay, there’s a pattern, what does that mean?” It’s indicating when buyers, who haven’t been very active in the previous 4 months, are starting their search. Having your home listed on the day people begin their search puts you in front of the most eyeballs and gives you the best chance of catching the attention of these determined searchers who have been waiting to start until now! |
“But I don’t want to sell my house during the holidays!”
Honestly, you probably won’t. According to an article by Zillow in 2021, the average time it takes to search for a home is 4.5 months, plus another 30-45 days to close. That’s May. Practically June. Google is just saying when people START looking. See?
Time Buyers Spend Searching For A Home
Bear in mind, that was 2021 and the market was different than it is now, and Zillow accounts for a national average, not a local average.
So let’s get a little more specific and look at what happened in 2023 in the Billings area.
According to the Billings Association of REARLTORs® MLS, 72% of all residential listings that were listed in December, sold. Those that sold spent an average of 47 days on market, and the other “Chilly” months like January and February weren’t far off.
Let’s compare that to the “Hot” market. Properties listed in July sold 68% of the time, and averaged 55 days on market. Listings in September only sold 60% of the time.
It’s strange to think December and January are technically hot market seasons, but the numbers are there.
“So what causes those numbers?”
 | Well, not to be vague, but a lot of things. There are more listings in the warmer months, as you can see, and winter has more scarcity. There’s the resolution makers, which we can extrapolate from Google. And then there’s just the unknown factor. Every year is a little different, and the market fluctuates, unemployment, interest rates, we could analyze this to death. These are just the high level statistics we like to look at. So take the numbers and use them as data points to try and paint a bigger picture, like what we’re doing. |
And we understand, the idea that people might be wandering through your house during a busy holiday season can be off putting. But in our experience, especially in Montana, the only people who are braving the weather and giving up their free time in December are the most motivated buyers, the ones you want in your home.
The point we’re trying to make here is, listing your house in December, is one of the best things you can do if you want to move this spring, and if you start now, you can get the photos done when your house is clean and gussied up, and enjoy the holidays with minimal interruptions.
If that sounds good to you, give the Pat Schindele team a call and let us work with you to get a speedy, pain free sale on your home!
Written by: Hilary Rothstein, Marketing Specialist • Pat Schindele Real Estate Team • November 25, 2024
