The advent of the Internet has taken most of the seasonality out the real estate market. For example, it is now January and I have as many clients this month looking for Nova Scotia homes as I did in August.
Good question. Is there seasonality in real estate sales?

If this was 10 years ago I would have said, “Hang on, your homehasn’t a chance to sell this winter. Wait until spring when the buyers are around.”

Not anymore. The advent of the Internet has taken most of the seasonality out the real estate market. For example, it is now January and I have as many clients this month looking for Nova Scotia homes as I did in August. In addition, they are all from outside of the Province. For example; An American gentleman flying in from England this Saturday, (just for the day), A couple from Georgia coming at the end of the month to find land to build and a local couple looking at million dollar homes for a sister-in-law retiring to Nova Scotia from Upper Canada. They are all piling in airplanes to come to Nova Scotia in the middle of winter. On Saturday I will be in a helicopter winging my way around the province guiding an American buyer, that want a birds eye view of potential homes to purchase, even with a foot of snow on the ground! Seasonality, what seasonality? What gives here?

On doityourself.com web site, in a recent article they discuss seasonality. “Some sellers take their homes off the market for a while because their agents recommend that they do so. Many agents believe that summer and winter are not the best times to sell a home. Spring is typically thought to be the best season for home sales. A recent study by the National Association of Realtors contradicts this notion by reporting that people buy homes all year long. The study found that there is some seasonality to home buying, but not as much as might be expected. Summer accounts for 30.2 percent of home buying activity. Spring takes second place with 25.9 percent. Autumn is third with 24.8 percent, and the slowest season is Winter with 19 percent. Surprisingly, the differences between Spring, Summer and Fall aren’t that big. And Winter is far from dead.”

Not everyone agrees. An US Realtor has posted this on his web site with some advise by way of a question and answer format.
Is there any seasonality to the market? Peak selling seasons vary in different areas of the country, and weather has a lot to do with it. For example, late spring and early fall are the prime listing seasons in many areas because houses tend to “show” better in those months than they do in the heat of summer or the cold of winter. And of course, people like to do their house shopping when the weather is pleasant.
But keep in mind that there are also more houses on the market during the prime seasons, so you’ll have more competition. So, while there is seasonality in the real estate market, it’s not something that should dominate your decision on when to sell.
When is the best time to list a house for sale? As soon as you decide to sell it. If you want to get the best price for your house, the key is to give yourself as much time as possible to sell it. More time means more potential buyers will probably see the house. This should result in more offers; it also gives you time to consider more options if the market is slow or initial interest is low. Both are key points. Come to the market early and don’t wait for everyone else to think the spring is the only time to sell. There is nothing wrong with being an early bird tot he market place, considering there are millions of people on-line looking for a home everyday.

My Explanation. Time! Buyers are busy people, (At least mine are) even in retirement, family obligations, volunteer commitments all commands time for my buyers. Usually the disposable time comes in the winter and that is when they pounce on Nova Scotia real estate. OK, it is not a land office business, but it is still business, and it knocks the heck out of waiting for spring to arrive to get busy again. To underline my tale, Holden Lewis in article written for bankrate.com , “Web Eases Vacation Home Buying ” Lewis says ” They don’t want to disrupt their vacations with days of house hunting. So they turn to technology. The Web and e-mail make it easier for people to shop for vacation homes long-distance.”

To further underline the phenomenon, My partner and I probably handle 20 clients at any one time (this is year round), many are very active clients, some are still considering their options and others are still trying to figure out how to get here. An example is a client I had this past summer that was dying to have a Chester summer home . He selected a home on-line and I bent over backwards supplying floor plans, new photographs (all angles) and inspection reports. The last stage for him was to physically come up, view the property, and sign the deal. Suddenly, he fell of the face of the earth. After a week of silence, I contacted him and he was embarrassed to say, even though he is retired, there wasn’t an open window to make even a quick trip to NS. So he easily surmised that, if he couldn’t find a few days for he and his wife, to get from Colorado to NS to buy a house, how was he ever going to find time to use it. He said that had to rethink their whole retirement plan. Oh well. At least I now have more pictures than I will ever need for this home and a set of new floor plans too! I am in good from for the next buyer.

Home-buyers are cruising the Internet like never before. All year long, not just the day before they buy. An article posted on realtor.org “Use of the Internet in searching for a home has risen along with the level of Internet penetration, rising from only 2 percent of buyers in 1995 to 71 percent in 2003 and 74 percent currently,“ and in another article they go on to say “nearly two-thirds of home buyers with Internet access use the Web to shop for their next home, and buyers who use the Internet are more likely to use a real estate professional to handle their transaction than traditional home buyers, according to a new survey by the National Association of Realtors®.”

A Canadian Realtor backs this above in an article on myrealpage.com about a survey they conducted in 2001. “According to the Royal LePage Home Attitude Poll released in February of 2001, more than 7 out of 10 Canadians (72.4%) will use the Internet in their next real estate transaction.” That was 2001, so imagine what the stats would be today, 90%, 95% or 99%!

In 2004 the Tradewinds Realty web site seanovascotia.com had a record month in October 2004 of over 2,000,000 hits. Yes 2 million+. Our monthly hit average is 1.7 million and we have a running daily average of between 800 – 1,000 unique visitors a day. Month in month out!

There used to be an old commercial on TV that promoted winter work efforts and it seems very appropriate to repeat it now. “Why wait for spring do it now!”

T.H.

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