Why people don't list their home during the holidays

Here’s what you can still do to win the listing

It’s THAT time of year.

Holiday decorations are being put up. Christmas shopping is happening at a volume of billions of dollars a day…

...and home sellers are putting up their hands like a crossing guard in front of your kid’s school telling you that they don’t want to list their home at THAT time of the year. 

Get FREE access to our Master Class on how an ISA can help you convert listings at any time of the year...even the holidays. 

Of course, if you’ve been an agent during even on holiday season, then you’ve already heard it all:

“I want to wait until next year” or

“I don’t want my carpets to get all muddy/keep my home clean during the holidays” or

“I don’t want people traipsing through my house while it’s all decorated” and even

“I have guests coming and I don’t want them to have to deal with buyers”.

At the end of the day, it’s all the same: objections.

Objections are speed bumps...not roadblocks

The good news is that there are some great ways to handle these types of objections and still get sellers to list their homes.

Here are a few strategies to remove the “Bah Hum Bug” from sellers who are not open to listing and selling their home during the holidays.

Why Sellers Don’t List Their Homes During the Holidays

The biggest objection we usually hear is that sellers want to wait until next year. Conventional wisdom would tell you that waiting makes sense - the facts say otherwise.

As we discussed in our previous blog post, The 7 Best Times to Hire an Inside Sales Agent ( ISA ) for Your Business, selling during the winter is actually one of the better times of the year to do so. The challenge is that most real estate agents - never mind sellers - don’t even know that.

However, now that you’re armed with this information, you’re able to combat this objection and SHOW sellers that they not only is it more likely that their home will sell, but also that they’ll make more money and sell faster.

Show me is always more powerful than tell me, so this graphic should help you make a great case to your seller in an effort to get them to list their home.

Next up…

“I don’t want my carpets to get all muddy/keep my home clean during the holidays”

When you get hit with this one, it’s important to remind the seller that it’s their home and they control when someone sees the home. This is a good opportunity to leverage your question asking skills in order to elicit a positive response to listing and selling in the winter.

Ask a question like: “Mr./Mrs. Seller, it’s your home and you can control when it gets shown. If we could show your home on certain days of the week to limit when it’s shown so you wouldn’t have to keep it squeaky clean all the time, would that work?”

Or, you could ask: ‘“If we got a commitment from the showing agents to take their shoes off and put up a sign at your house before showings, would that work?”

The important thing here is to get sellers excited about getting more money for their home and then resolve this objection with good questions on the way to getting a listing appointment or the listing itself.

Last but not least…

We have these three gems:

• “I don’t want people traipsing through my house while it’s all decorated”
• “I have guests coming and I don’t want them to have to deal with buyers”
• “I don’t want to have to move during the holidays.”

Here’s a little sales/science lesson for you to help with these objections.

Nobody likes to be “SOLD” right?

And in my opinion: “A man’s mind changed against his will is of the same opinion still”.

More specifically, it’s virtually impossible to change someone’s mind or belief system...that’s up to the person themself.

Knowing this, it’s best to just lead someone to their own conclusion.

Which leads us back to asking good questions.

You see, when someone has to think about something and come up with an answer, there is a physical change in their brain and even in their body. And when those changes occur, it feels like they were involved in the decision and not like just doing what they were told to do. As a result, people are more likely to do what you want them to do if you ask them questions rather than “direct” them where to go.

So, as we look at these objections, we can likely get some movement on them by asking one of these simple questions:

• “If we could get your home sold now and close in the new year, would that work for you?”
• “We have a great coming soon listing program that would let the population of buyers who would be interested in your home know that it will be available after the holidays were over. With the program, we can gather information on possible buyers and not lose out on some amazing prospective buyers. Would you be open to that if we didn’t have to disrupt you and your guests?”
• “Are you and your guests going to be heading out on any days? [Wait for the answer] If you’d like, we can confine showings to the days and times you’ll be out of the house. How would that work for you?”

Certainly, the answer could be “NO”, but it could be yes.

What I know is that if you don’t A-S-K you don’t G-E-T.

So, you need to at least ask in order to find out who’s open to listing and selling during the holidays.

The best news in all of this is this: even if you don’t get a large number of listings during the holidays, you’ll start relationships with people who you can nurture and then get as listing opportunities in the new year.

While other agents are just coming out of hibernation in January and February, you will have already been nurturing relationships with potential sellers and be in position to get some great business.

And who know, if you ask these questions, you might just get lucky and pick up some listings before Santy comes shimmying down your chimney.

 Click here to get access to our powerful book of proven scripts to get even better results over the phone.