Selling Your House During the Holidays? Here Are 5 Rules for Survival!
October 20, 2026
Real estate magic does NOT happen just because it’s the season of holiday magic!
I know, I know. It’s the season of miracles! But unfortunately, Santa Claus doesn’t deliver qualified buyers down the chimney carrying full-price offers. So, if you absolutely MUST sell your house during the holidays, let’s talk about five things you can actually do to improve your chances.
First, We Need to Have an Uncomfortable Holiday-Themed Conversation
Whenever I warn the home owners to try to avoid having their home listed for sale between October and beginning of January, I typically hear this: “Oh, I know the market is tough, BUT I think my house will sell quickly.” Or my personal favorite: “I know, I know… But you’re a great Realtor! I’m sure you can work your magic!”
Well, I appreciate the confidence. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my magic wand. And while I can do quite a bit to help you sell your house, I cannot magically make buyers appear when most of them are busy decorating Christmas trees, booking holiday flights, and spending money on presents.
And sometimes, when I start explaining the challenges of selling during a seasonal slowdown, homeowners interrupt: “Oh, let’s not talk about that. Let’s be optimistic!”
No, no, no. We’re DEFINITELY going to talk about that! We can be optimistic AND realistic at the same time. Because if we avoid this conversation now, three months from now you may be sitting there, frustrated, asking: “What is wrong with our marketing? Why don’t we have offers? We are tired to waiting! We really need to be done with the process!”
And I’ll be thinking, Remember that conversation you didn’t want to have? So let’s have it now.
If selling during the holidays is unavoidable, then welcome to real estate Winter Hunger Game! Here are my five survival recommendations for the game participants.
Rule #1: Adjust Your Expectations To Have Almost No Buyer Interest
I know you’ve spent weeks getting your house ready. You’ve cleaned, painted, repaired, decluttered, and possibly sacrificed several perfectly good weekends making everything look beautiful. And that’s wonderful!
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: The market doesn’t know how hard you worked or how much money you poured into the updates. And it doesn’t particularly care. At least for now.
You’re entering a season when buyer activity often slows, people have competing priorities, and some sellers who’ve been sitting on the market for months are becoming increasingly motivated. Some are cutting prices. Others are offering incentives. And here you come, with your beautiful, freshly prepared house, expecting buyers to rush in with full-price offers. Could that happen? Absolutely! But expecting it to happen is a different matter. You’re fighting against gravity!
That doesn’t mean you should immediately slash your price. It means you need to understand your competition, price realistically, and establish a plan for what happens if buyers don’t respond.
And please, don’t take it personally if the market doesn’t reward every dollar and every weekend you invested in preparing your home.
Buyers reward value and solutions to THEIR problems. They don’t value your feelings or your effort.
Rule #2: Prepare To Use Incentives Similar To Those Used By Builders
Want to know who’s really good at selling houses? Homebuilders! Builders are among the highest-volume home sellers in the country. They sell homes year-round, including during the holidays, and they have something most individual homeowners don’t have: An enormous amount of sales data telling them what works and what doesn’t. They know which promotions generate inquiries, which incentives bring buyers through the doors, and which offers actually help turn interested shoppers into homeowners.
And here’s something interesting. When the market slows down, builders don’t just sit around hoping buyers will magically appear. They start giving buyers reasons to act!
Mortgage rate buydowns. Closing-cost assistance. Special financing programs. Appliance packages. Limited-time promotions.
And what are buyers seeing when they open their phones? Builder advertisements!
- “Special Financing Available!”
- “We’ll Help Pay Your Closing Costs!”
- “Limited-Time Holiday Incentives!”
Now imagine that same buyer visits your resale home. They love your kitchen. They love your backyard. They love the neighborhood. But they’re also thinking: “The builder down the street is offering to help with my closing costs. What are YOU offering?”
And you say: “Well, I’m offering you a very nice house!” Wonderful! But so is the builder! And they’re throwing in incentives!
Here’s my recommendation. Before listing your house during the holidays, take a good look at what builders in your area and price range are offering. Don’t just look at their asking prices. Study their incentives. Are they helping buyers lower their mortgage payments? Offering money toward closing costs? Providing upgrades or appliance packages?
Then ask your Realtor and, where appropriate, a mortgage lender: Which of these incentives could we realistically offer on YOUR house?
Now, obviously, you can’t duplicate everything a builder does. Builders sometimes have relationships with preferred lenders, financing arrangements, and economies of scale that individual sellers simply cannot match. And some advertised incentives come with conditions or financing requirements.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t borrow their best ideas. Maybe you can contribute toward a buyer’s closing costs. Maybe a temporary mortgage rate buydown would make your property more attractive. Maybe including appliances or offering another practical concession would help a buyer choose your house over the competition.
The important thing is to understand what buyers are being conditioned to expect. Because builders are spending enormous amounts of money advertising these incentives and generating interest in them. Why not capitalize on some of that buyer interest?
You don’t necessarily have to outspend the builders. And you certainly don’t have to copy every promotion they run. But when builders are successfully attracting buyers with a particular type of incentive, you should at least consider whether you can offer something comparable. After all, builders have already done a great deal of the market testing. You might as well learn from it!
Rule #3: Make Your House Ridiculously Easy to Show
I understand. It’s the holidays. You’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner, decorating the Christmas tree, entertaining relatives, shopping, traveling, and trying to enjoy the season. And the last thing you want is someone asking to tour your house at 5:30 on a Saturday evening.
But here’s the problem. There may not be another buyer asking to see your house for the next two weeks!
In a busy market, you might have enough buyer interest to establish fairly restrictive showing hours. During the holidays? Not necessarily. If a qualified buyer wants to see your house, make every reasonable effort to accommodate the showing.
Don’t make touring your property feel like scheduling an appointment with the President of the United States.
“Sorry, my daughter and her friends are baking cookies.”
“Sorry, we’re wrapping presents.”
“Sorry, we’re having people over.”
I get it. I really do. But if, knowing how hard it is to sell a house during the holidays you decided to make a plunge, expect your holiday season to revolve around the house sale – or else you might be better off waiting until January. You don’t have to abandon every family activity or agree to unreasonable demands. But you do need to be flexible. During the holidays, convenience for the buyer can become a competitive advantage for the seller.
Rule #4: The Sparrow In Hand Is Worth More Than The Eagle In The Sky
Imagine your house is listed for $400,000. A buyer comes along and offers $380,000. And, to add the insult to injury, it also asks for your furniture, appliances, and for you to pay part of their closing costs. Most sellers immediately say: “How dare they! Absolutely not! We’re not giving our house and things away!”
How about you? Would you take it or let that buyer go buy the house down the street?
I personally would recommend you counter the initial offer, but then take the best deal you can get. Because in the Fall and Winter housing market, even $20,000 below asking an offer to be seriously considered.
Full priced offers are the flowers of Spring and Summer. Big discounts on everything, including homes, are the flowers of Fall and Winter. Each season comes with its own flowers.
Unless you are using some advanced pricing techniques like 72SOLD. Now, if you use some advanced techniques, the game could be played with more leverage on your side.
Now, I’m not saying every first offer is a good offer. Some offers are genuinely unreasonable. Others come with financing problems, excessive contingencies, or terms that make them unattractive. But don’t reject an offer simply because the number hurts your feelings. Look at the entire proposal. Consider negotiating the price, financing, contingencies, closing timeline, and appliances/furniture. And most importantly, compare that offer with your realistic alternatives. Because if you turn it down, what’s your next move?
How long might you wait for another buyer? What if it is another month? Two months? Three months? What will be the full cost of inaction? And what if the next offer is even lower?
A buyer who’s ready, willing, and able to purchase your house today may be worth considerably more than an imaginary buyer you hope will appear tomorrow. Especially during the holidays.
Rule #5: Don’t Penny-Pinch Once You’re Under Contract
This might be the most important rule of all.
Congratulations! You are the lucky seller that happened to catch the rare winter buyer! You’ve negotiated the price, signed the contract, and moved into the inspection period. And then the buyer asks for a list of repairs.
Maybe there’s an electrical issue could be grandfathered in, but the buyers want it updated to current electrical standards. Maybe the buyer wants your to install the gutters all around the house. Or maybe the buyer wants you to replace an aging water heater.
And suddenly, the battle rages over the gutters or the water heater. Often, I hear: “Absolutely not! That water heater works just fine! They are just trying to scam a water heater our of us! We’re not spending another penny! They already offended us with their low offer – and now they want a new water heater??? If they want to walk away – that’s their loss! We already gave away too much!”
I’m not suggesting that sellers should agree to every unreasonable repair request. Some buyers do ask for far too much. Some repairs are expensive enough to change the economics of the entire transaction. You absolutely need to evaluate the costs, the contract terms, and whether the requests are justified.
But when a reasonable concession can preserve an otherwise good transaction, think carefully before saying no to buyers who are 1-2 weeks away from closing on your house and freeing up your cash. Because once a buyer walks away, you may have to start the entire process over again – with uncertain results. This is not the season to gamble on winning a $1,500 argument but lose a sale that could allow you to move on your preferred timeline.
The Bottom Line: Be in Survival Mode, Not Optimization Mode
If you have to sell during the holidays, your strategy needs to reflect the market you’re actually entering, not the market you wish you were entering.
- Be realistic about your price. Optimize for surviving and moving on, not holding off until you get your way.
- Prepare incentives that help buyers overcome financial obstacles. Optimizing for doing more for your buyer than your buyer is doing for you. That is what builders so, and they are still pretty profitable, despite concessions and price cuts.
- Make your house easy to show. Optimize for buyers’ convenience, as much as logistics allow.
- Take legitimate offers seriously. See my earlier point about the builders. They really put in the fight to grab every person with a pulse who happened to walk into their office, and look at their booming business.
And once you’re under contract, don’t jeopardize the transaction over relatively small concessions. You are in the final stretch of the game, don’t start the game all over again.
Sellers who typically win the real estate Winter Hunger Games are the sellers who are in SURVIVAL mode. Not OPTIMIZATION mode.
