Selling Your Home in Winter: Challenges and Opportunities

Are you selling your home in the Winter and putting it on the market? Are you mad?

Well actually, you might just be very shrewd! While most people recognise spring as the start of the annual ‘selling season, choosing the colder months has several advantages when selling your home.

More committed buyers

Although there are undeniably fewer buyers registering with Propertymark agents in late autumn and winter, those that are active are very committed – they are, after all, house hunting while many others are distracted by Christmas. For selling your home, this can actually work in your favour.

In addition, this winter there’s an extra incentive for first-time buyers: their stamp duty concession, introduced in 2023, will end in spring 2025. So, if your home appeals to someone just stepping on the property ladder, you may have more viewings than you expect.

Fewer rival property listings

Undoubtedly this time of year sees some sellers taking a break from the market, typically for family reasons and particularly not wanting their homes ‘on standby’ for viewings. This could be a benefit to selling your home in winter.

There’s clearly an upside to this for those who keep their homes for sale, or who choose to come to the market for the first time – there’s simply less competition about.

Boxing Day bounce

As we say, many homes sell successfully throughout the winter period but you may well have seen in recent years that the main property websites the property portals talk of something very specific called the Boxing Day Bounce.

It’s not just a marketing ploy: there really is a vast number of people who check out the listings of homes on sale on Boxing Day, preparing to make plans for the year ahead. That’s why in recent years some Propertymark agents have suggested to sellers to first list their home on December 26 to take advantage of this glut of interest. Selling homes during winter to catch this peak period is a great strategy.

Marketing strategies for winter

Photographs: If your property has been on sale for some time, this may be the time to have different photographs on your listings. This isn’t just to freshen up the details but also to avoid potential buyers scrolling through, seeing a sunny summer’s day and suspecting you have failed to find a buyer for many months – not a good look in a competitive market.

Pricing: Your Propertymark agent will guide you on possible asking prices, taking into account their local market expertise and experience from past winter sales. Broadly the advice has to be ‘be sensible’: mortgage interest rates remain high, so buyers need to think they are getting value for money before they make an offer for your home in winter and follow through to complete the deal.

Viewings: Agree with your agent on which days you want ‘off’ with no viewings – perhaps most obviously Christmas Eve, the day itself and Boxing Day, along with New Year’s Day. Keep your property warm and ‘viewing-ready’ for the rest of the days, and if you have something homely like an open fireplace, keep it lit to enhance the atmosphere for potential buyers during the winter season.

Decorations: This is not as trivial as you might think. The advice about decluttering is just as relevant at Christmas as any other time – committed buyers won’t think you a Grinch if you have very few decorations! Then you and the family can have fun putting them up near to Christmas Day itself. But don’t forget to take them down ahead of any viewing afterwards!

New Leaf Syndrome: Remember that many people, especially families, use the festive period to plan for the following year. That’s why, in addition to Boxing Day, property websites have very heavy traffic oil January 1 and the days before the big return to work. This is another opportunity for your property to shine.

We all operate in a much less seasonal way than we used to – we no longer restrict our holidays to summertime, for example. This goes as much for buying and selling homes as for anything else in life.

So don’t rule out winter as a time to sell – but do take advice from Propertymark agents about how to turn this time of year to your advantage when selling your home.

Last Updated: November 29th, 2024