a relaxed and stress free real estate Christmas! We all have clients that are shopping for a home and want to take possession in December. It's an exciting time for our clients and their families and we want to make it as stress free as possible!
As your Mortgage Broker, I have some tips around setting a possession date for our clients during the holiday season.
For possessions before Christmas, make them no later than December 17th. This way if there are closing delays they can be resolved well before December 23rd. If you make the possession date December 23rd or 24th and there are delays, it could result in closing being delayed until after the New Year due to the shortage of business days between Christmas and the New Year. This would result in some very upset clients so its best to avoid it.
For those clients that want to take possession in January, I would suggest possessions for January 10th or later. The reason for this is that the first week back after the holidays for the lenders and lawyers can be a bit hairy especially if they are dealing with issues that arose for those files that had closing dates between December 24th-January 4th.
I have worked with clients over the years that wrote offers during the holidays or tried to take possession on December 24th, 30th, and 31st, and I can honestly tell you the lack of business days during this time added an extra level of stress.
Buying a house is such a wonderful Christmas present our clients can give themselves. Let's help manage that experience so it can be as joyful and stress free as possible!