When do new homes typically start popping up again? (Mark: spring break, credit)

[chisub]

We've been looking at homes/areas for almost a year now and are finally at the point where we plan on putting our place on the market after we finish our 2009 taxes (DH owns a biz).

Obviously the market is slow around the holidays, but when do people typically start putting their places back on the market? I know they say Spring is when things warm up, but can we expect to see a little rise before then? We just want to make sure that we are starting to see some homes that we'd actually be interested in vs. just those properties that seem to be sitting for the past couple of months.

[middle-aged mom]

Generally speaking the so called Spring Market begins in late February and persists till April.

In reality, there are new listings each and every day. Depends on your price point and where you want to move.

Be aware that there are likely to be many, many homes that were withdrawn from the market with the intention to relist, come Spring, so you will likely see some recycled stuff , too.

[chet everett]

I have seen a STRONG correlation with WEATHER -- if you think about it actually makes sense. All the little tasks that people like to do when prepping for a move are HARDER to do when it gets crummy out: trips to pickup storage bins, trips to hardware store, meeting with agents, lenders...

Rarely do folks "flood" onto the market before late February, but there are SOME folks that will list in the first full week of January, them more after college kids are back in school, then more after Valentines and things build to peak when things really firm up after spring break. Folks that list after that may already miss some buyers as relocation people often like to have their SECOND visit wrapped up before school is out...

Particularly CRUMMY weather can delay things by weeks so that there is much bigger wave all at once. Unseasonably PLEASANT weather tends to accelerate things to some degree, but not as dramatically. I also have found that wet rainy spring weekends tend to make open houses very unproductive while a nice SUNNY early melting weekend in the winter can be the BEST open house season all year. You do not get the really worthless tire kickers, but you pull in some fence sitters.

[chisub]

Thanks, that all makes sense! Luckily I have the memory of an elephant so hopefully I'll recognize a lot of those recycled properties.

[sgresident]

I would say work right now to get your ready..clean, clear out and stage it. interview your realtors and plan to be ready by march 1

[cohdane]

Keep the home buyers tax credit in mind. If I were you, I'd find the expiration date on that and back my listing date up accordingly.

My guess is there will be a surge in buying to beat whatever the extended closing deadline is.

[chisub]

They have to be in contract by April 30th and close by June 30th. We planned on selling this year anyways, but since we are selling a starter home we figured we'd give it a shot a tad earlier b/c of the extended credit. Now that all the Christmas decorations are down, we're going on a cleaning frenzy and will be putting stuff away in storage very soon. I'm guessing we'll put the place on the market once our taxes are finished, so sometime in Feb.