EHS in 2015 by the Numbers – Part 2 – Least Common Closing Dates

This blog post was written by Managing Director of Housing Research, Danielle Hale, and Data Analyst, Hua Zhong.

You probably know that home closings slow down during the holidays and the earlier part of the week. Here is the data to back up your intuition:

• The sales data for December 2015 is still preliminary, but we can get a good sense of the year by looking at the data we currently have for the past 12 months[1]. In our first post, we looked at top closing days of 2015.
• In this list, we see the slowest closing days of 2015. The resulting list depends very much on how you define the eligible days.
• Very few closings happen on weekends and federal holidays. Excluding these days as well as Christmas Eve, we find that the slowest closing day was Tuesday, January 13, 2015. Last year’s slowest day—January 2, 2014—again made the list, but was number four instead of number one this year, likely because it fell on a Friday which tends to boost sales. In fact, it was the only Friday to make this list.
• While in 2014 there were a few weekend days that performed at least as well as these slow business days, this was not the case in 2015. All weekend days and holidays were slower than the slow business days listed below.
• Because this ranking was compiled with data that was not seasonally adjusted, we see that winter days figure prominently in the list of slowest days for home closings.
• Those who have been in business a few years can probably expect these seasonal fluctuations, but for those who are new to real estate, take note and plan your vacations accordingly.

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[1] This analysis considers data from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015.