How to Market a Listing During Major Holidays

Most agents go quiet during the holidays. They pull back on outreach, slow down their posting schedule, and assume buyers aren't paying attention. That assumption costs them deals.

Buyers who are actively searching during Thanksgiving week, Christmas, or New Year's are not casual. They are motivated. They may be under a relocation deadline, have just received an inheritance, or be closing a year-end tax transaction. Competition from other listings also drops, which means your active listing gets more relative visibility than it would in March.

The strategic reality is this: holiday slowdowns are a perception problem, not a market reality. The agents who keep showing up, stay in front of motivated buyers, and use the seasonal calendar to their advantage tend to close faster and with fewer competing offers than they would in peak spring inventory.

Adjust Your Schedule, Not Your Effort

The first thing to do is separate your own holiday schedule from your marketing schedule. You are allowed to take Christmas morning off. Your listing content, your email sequences, and your paid ads should not.

Schedule your social posts, email touches, and any paid promotion at least a week in advance of major holidays. Most scheduling tools let you queue content days or weeks out. A post that goes live at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving reaches buyers who are traveling, sitting at airports, or scrolling on their phones before the meal. That is not a small audience.

For showings, be honest about what you can accommodate and communicate it clearly. If you are available the day after Christmas but not Christmas Day itself, say so in your remarks and your agent-to-agent emails. Buyers and buyer's agents plan around your availability, so give them accurate information early.

Rewrite Your Remarks for the Season

A listing description that sat on MLS since October needs a refresh by December. Not a full rewrite, but a targeted update to the first one or two sentences that signals the home is active and worth attention right now.

You can also lean into features that are directly relevant to the season. A home with a gas fireplace in the main living area, a large dining room that seats twelve, or a radiant-heated garage floor earns specific attention in December copy in a way it might not in June. Buyers reading listings in winter are literally cold. They are thinking about heat, comfort, and gathering space.

Avoid manufactured urgency. Phrases like "seller motivated" or "price reduced for the holidays" signal desperation rather than strategy. Instead, lead with the property's actual strengths and let the season inform which features you put first.

Use Email and Text Differently Than Social

Holiday email open rates tend to be higher for real estate content than most agents expect, because people have more time to read during long weekends. A well-timed email to your buyer list on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when travel stress has not yet peaked, can generate showing requests for that weekend.

Keep the email short. Three or four sentences describing what makes the listing worth a showing, a clear photo, and a direct link to schedule. Do not write a newsletter. People are busy and their inboxes are full. Get to the point in the first line.

Text messages to buyers you have already been working with directly are appropriate when you have an existing relationship and they have opted in. A quick message on December 26 saying the sellers are ready to move and showings are available this week is relevant information, not an intrusion. Time those messages for mid-morning, not early or late.

Paid Ads During Holidays: What Actually Works

Cost-per-click on Meta and Google often drops during major holiday weeks because many advertisers pull their budgets. This means you can reach more people for the same spend if you stay active. A modest daily budget of $10 to $20 on a well-targeted listing ad can generate meaningful traffic when competition is thin.

Target by geography and by intent signals rather than broad demographics. If your listing is in a school district that matters, target parents with children. If it is a larger home with a detached garage or guest suite, the interest-based targeting options let you reach people who have been researching those specific features. Do not run a generic ad to a generic audience.

For creative, use your strongest interior photo in the first frame and keep the copy to one specific fact about the home. Square footage, price per square foot, or a specific feature that sets the property apart. Vague ad copy gets ignored at any time of year, but especially when buyers are distracted by family and travel.

What to Tell Your Seller

Sellers who are listed during the holidays sometimes get anxious when showing traffic slows. Set expectations before the holidays arrive, not after the first quiet week.

Explain that December and January buyers are typically pre-approved, often under time pressure, and less likely to make low offers as a negotiating tactic. A slower showing pace does not mean less serious buyers. It means fewer but more qualified ones. That is a message that lands better when you say it before the holiday, not when you are defending a quiet week.

Also remind sellers that their home shows well during this time if it is decorated tastefully. Clean, minimal seasonal decor reads as warm and livable in photos. Heavy or personalized holiday decoration makes it harder for buyers to see themselves in the space. One wreath on the door, a clean mantle, and some greenery is fine. Floor-to-ceiling Christmas trees in three rooms is not.

Keep the Momentum Into January

The week between New Year's Day and the second week of January is one of the most underutilized windows in residential real estate. Buyer motivation is high, New Year's resolutions are fresh, and many people have made decisions over the holidays that they are now ready to act on.

If your listing has been sitting since November, this is the right time to reassess price, refresh photos if the original set was taken in fall light, and send a targeted re-engagement email to everyone who showed interest but did not make an offer. The message does not need to be complicated. Tell them the home is still available, tell them what has changed if anything has, and ask directly if they want to schedule a second showing.

Montaic can generate an updated MLS description, a re-engagement email, and a set of social posts from a single input in a few minutes. If you are managing multiple active listings across the holiday season, that kind of output speed matters. You can keep every listing visible and current without spending your holiday evenings writing copy from scratch.