THE HOLIDAY MARKET
From now through the end of the year, the active inventory typically drops about 27% and demand drops by 31%.
Daylight saving time just ended. Everybody got an extra hour of sleep, but it now gets darker earlier. In adjusting the clocks in the house, it marked the beginning of a new season, a season of preparation and festivities, the holidays. With Halloween 2020 in the past, it it time to get the holiday lists in order. Many are thinking, it is just too soon. It is not “officially” the holidays until the red cups arrive at Starbucks. NEWSFLASH: they will debut this Saturday, November 7th. In the blink of an eye, 2020 will come to an end as everyone celebrates the arrival of 2021.
Similarly, this is the beginning of a new season for housing, the Holiday Market. With shorter days and all the distractions of the holidays, housing will downshift with a drop in the both the supply, the active inventory of homes available to purchase, and demand, the last 30-days of new escrows. To the buyers and the sellers that remain, the overall market will still feel sizzling hot, but there simply will be fewer active participants. Exhausted from politics and COVID-19, the holidays will be a welcome, positive diversion.
The inventory will steadily drop from now through the end of the year. Fewer homeowners will place their homes on the market since 2020’s end is fast approaching. Intuitively, many will simply “wait until spring.” It is a common phenomenon that repeats itself every year. There will still be homeowners lured to enter the fray due to the public knowledge that housing is by far the strongest sector of the United States economy, yet most will opt to wait until at least March of 2021.
Excerpt taken from an an article by Steven Thomas
