Is the Boxing Day Bounce really a thing?

[winterwonder1]

Or is it just estate agent talk? We are hoping more houses will come on the market soon but nothing new is being added. Boxing Day Bounce ahead as house hunters head to Rightmove | The Bolton News

I think a lot of people hold off over Christmas so you get a bit of a rush of properties all at once. Plus, people start viewing again, so it’s an increase of buyers and sellers all at once.

Supposedly, but doom scrolling Rightmove on Boxing Day didn’t translate into extra sales last year. Maybe this year will be different.

I was talking to my estate agent about this yesterday.

We are about to put our house up for sale and have selected the agent and so he came around to take photos yesterday.

I expected him to want to put it on immediately as he is fairly confident it will sell as there arent many houses like ours (standard 4 bed family home) for sale in our area.

He did state the rghtmove stat about highest number of browsers on boxing day but his feeling is that it reflects people being cooped up and bored over Christmas. He and most estate agents arent open until the first week of January so people might browse but wont be able to action it.

He advised that it would be best to wait to January - if it went on now we would have a week/10 days until everything shuts down for Christmas. He said we might be lucky to get one or two people who are already looking but the biggest problem is that it will then appear as an 'old' listing in January. Far better he said to go live in January and then far more people will be motivated to act, perhaps haviung thought about their housing situation over Christmas. So we will be going live on 6 January!

No. It's desperate EAs hoping that something will turn up.

IME the housing market shuts down for winter and does not really get going again until spring.

nah! Rubbish. It’s probably the one day of the year i dont look at RM

IME Jan is a good time to look!

I think it's a complete load of nonsense.

A myth repeated every year by Rightmove's PR department to get them some easy/cheap publicity.

The market generally doesn't pick up until mid-Jan.

Our agent told us that lots of people look at Rightmove etc on Boxing Day but nothing happens as agents are closed. He said new year is a better option.

I think the click stats are real. But I think it is mostly people who aspire to have an extra bedroom or reception room who have been driven mad with not enough house/inadequate kitchens over xmas, and it doesn't translate into viewings.

At least, housing folks say it doesn't.

We own a house developers business
There are a lot of bored people looking on Rightmove on boxing day
But that is all it is
Labour have shit the market to pieces
There are very few buyers
Sensibly priced houses are still selling though but much less quickly

A lot of it is probably tyre kicking.

I doubt whether the largest number of views on Boxing day translates to the largest number of enquiries for EAs the week after.

But as they say, if you aren't in it, you can't win it.

I think it is a "let me look see what's about, what I might be able to get for my money" rather than "I am serious about finding a place to buy in the next 2-4 weeks.

Our EA gave us the Boxing Day Bounce bullshit 2 years ago. In fact he suggested at the beginning of the December to recarpet the whole house and buy new furniture for a second reception room in anticipation as that might help get viewers through the door. I couldn’t even fashion a sensible reply. We sold in January but the only action on Boxing Day was a few clicks, none of those followed with a viewing.

This is often cited, but I don’t think Rightmove browsing always = actual moving intention. Lots of people will have been visiting friends and family over Christmas, friends and family whilst together might show them places on Rightmove they’re considering; or guests might look at Rightmove during the lazy slowness of Boxing Day out of idle curiosity for what they’d get for their money elsewhere. I’ve done it: “Look at this five bedroom detached Georgian vicarage with two acres of land we’d be able to buy here for the same price if we sold our two bedroom 1950s London terrace!” It doesn’t mean I’m seriously thinking about moving there.

Yes, good point. I'll keep my fingers crossed!