Now is When the House Hunt Begins

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, when I drove home at 4:30 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday. Everyone was apparently watching the game, or serving food and drinks to guests, or in some other way immersed in this nationwide madness event.

We realtors, for the most part, didn’t bother doing open houses on Sunday. We know from years of experience: Super Bowl Sunday is like the Masters in golf, or the birth of a first child—an event so monumental to so many that we just wait till it passes before getting on with life.

Every year the real estate market begins to gather momentum in the week after the Super Bowl. The phone begins ringing off the hook, our equivalent of opening day at the races. We print more flyers, schedule more open houses, put buyers into our cars and drive them around, place ads in the paper and on the internet. We’re off!

The activity level steadily climbs until June. Then, it crests the hill and begins the gradual descent that virtually grinds to a halt like an old mule by the holidays. Why June? That’s when the kids get out of school. Parents want to be ready to move the instant the kids toss those sneakers over power lines, to get them settled and making friends for summer. There are vacations to launch—Memorial Day starts it, Labor Day ends it. After that, there is a significant lessening as people trot towards the holidays. Oh, a small percentage take a notion to be into a new home by Christmas, but we mainly see investors who need to close before year’s end.

Alternately, there are those earning substantial incomes whose tax man has warned them that they will “give it all to the government if they don’t buy a home before the end of the year.” The final gasp comes from a few percent who have been relocated here for employment. But for the most part, they are held off till after the first of the year, so their new employers don’t have to give them holiday benefits.

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