Should You Sell Your Home During the Holidays?

Published November 6, 2025 by Erik Miller, Mortgage Expert · NMLS #263103

Every year around October someone asks me whether they should pull their listing and try again in March. The assumption is that nobody buys a house in December. It is worth pushing on that assumption, because for a lot of sellers it is simply wrong.

Fewer buyers, but more serious ones

Traffic does drop in November and December. That part is true. What people miss is that the buyers who are still out looking in the middle of the holidays are not browsing. Someone touring a house the week before Christmas has a reason — a job start date, a lease ending, a family change, or a tax deadline they are trying to beat.

Fewer showings that convert at a much higher rate is not obviously a worse position than a flood of weekend traffic from people who are eight months from buying.

Your competition thins out too

This is the part that matters most and gets discussed least. If you delist in November because inventory is low, you are making the same decision as every other seller who was told the same thing. Come spring, all of you list at once and compete for the same buyers.

Staying on the market through a quiet season can mean being one of four options in your price range instead of one of twenty.

Rates move the timing more than the calendar does

Here is the thing that actually changes a seller's outcome, and it has nothing to do with holiday decorations: mortgage rates determine how much house your buyer pool can afford. A meaningful drop in rates expands the number of people who can qualify for your home almost immediately. A rise contracts it just as fast.

If you are selling in order to buy something else — which most sellers are — then the rate environment affects both sides of your transaction at once. That is a bigger lever than whether your listing photos have a wreath in them.

When waiting genuinely is the better call

I am not arguing everyone should list in December. Waiting makes sense when:

• Your home shows dramatically better in another season. If the backyard and the pool are the reason someone buys the house, photographing it under a grey sky is a real cost.
• You need repairs done first. Listing before the work is finished almost always costs more in price reduction than the repairs would have.
• You would be moving twice. If the timing forces an interim rental, the cost and the disruption can easily outweigh a slightly better sale price.

Run your own numbers before deciding

The honest answer is that the right timing depends on your equity, your rate, what you are buying next, and how quickly you need to move — not on a general rule about the season.

If you are weighing this, call me. We will look at what your current loan costs you each month you stay, what you would qualify for on the next house, and what the two scenarios actually look like side by side. That conversation is free and it takes about fifteen minutes.

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