I received a question in response to a previous blog entry about homebuying over the holidays in Big Bear. My post observed that there are challenges sometimes when looking at property around Christmas time as homes that are vacation rentals are often occupied and unavailable to be shown and people in general are understandably distracted by the busy holiday season. In response, a reader asked which months are the busiest for sales and which months are the slowest.

So I looked back over the past three years of Big Bear home sales and broke down the numbers. Below is a list of months with a ranking of 1 to 12 next to them, with 1 representing the busiest month and 12 being the slowest month for home closings. Keep in mind that these ranking represent the date at which the homes closed escrow. So it is likely that the buyers viewed the home and negotiated the transaction 30-60 days before the reported closing

January - 12

February - 10

March - 9

April - 8

May - 11

June - 6

July - 7

August - 5

September - 3

October - 4

November - 1

December - 2

So you can see that the first 5 months of the year are the slowest for Big Bear homes being sold while the last few months see the most closings.

Keeping mind the aforementioned 30-60 day escrow period between the home being purchased entering escrow and eventually closing, you can see that with January and February being 2 of the 3 slowest months, that few homes are viewed and negotiated in the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year.

That being said, it stands to reason that although there may be some challenges and inconveniences with buying a home during the holidays, perhaps the lack of buyers active in the market during this period provides an advantage to those who do look for homes during this time.