This time of year, as visions of sugar plums dance in everyone’s heads, Christmas parties swing into motion and family gatherings start to dot calendars, selling one’s home might need to take a back seat for a few weeks.
So what’s a seller to do if they’ve put a home on the market in, say, October, only to find that busy holiday schedule colliding with buyer showings?
Joan Herlong of Joan Herlong & Associates Sotheby’s International Realty has a solution.
“It’s something called ‘temporarily off the market,’” she says. “That means the home is still for sale, and the home is still listed, but the seller just hits the pause button. The days-on-market clock stops ticking, and online listing services tag it as ‘not on the market.’ It’s a really great pressure valve that doesn’t come with a days-on-market penalty. It really came in handy during COVID, when entire families had to sometimes quarantine. But it’s also helpful during the holidays.”
Herlong says she often suggests the “temporarily off the market” option to sellers this time of year.
Another option? Going MLS-exempt.
MLS-exempt, Herlong says, is also known as a “quiet listing,” meaning that, while the for-sale sign has come down, the home can still be quietly marketed, and contracts can be offered, under certain conditions.
“For whatever reason, sometimes people want to have their house for sale, but they don’t want to broadcast it on MLS,” Herlong says. “And if it’s MLS-exempt, we can’t broadcast it, period.”
