Low Inventory in December Yields Real Estate Showings Slowdown
December is notoriously the slowest month of the year in the real estate industry. Many home sellers tend to take their home off the market during the holidays, then relist it for sale within the upcoming new year, drastically dropping the inventory of homes for sale in December. With less inventory, real estate showings will decrease as well. According to Showing Suite’s CBSA home showing reports, between November and December 2012, within just one month, there was a 26 percent drop in overall home showings in December for all of the United States. Some sellers might take their home off the market before Thanksgiving, but many wait until mid-December to temporarily remove it. To put it into perspective; from January through October 2012, each month had an average of 140,000 showings each month, whereas in December there were only about 80,000 real estate showings for the entire month overall.
In December 2012, home showings peaked in the beginning of the month, and slowly declined as the holidays approached. The slowest day of the month for multiple showings in one day for a single listing was December 24th, whereas the slowest overall day was December 25th. On December 25th, there were 129 total showings for the entire United States. Last year, between December 2011 to January 2012, January had 48 percent more overall showings than December. Although home sales might be slow during the first month of 2013, real estate showings and listings are expected to increase drastically as more inventory goes back on the market, yielding more sales within early spring.
