Every year someone tells you that only serious buyers shop in December, and that you should list your Southlake home now to beat the spring rush. I went looking for the data behind that. Some of it holds up, some of it does not, and there is one thing I have to say first: nobody publishes who is shopping in Southlake the week of Christmas. What follows is DFW data for all price ranges, and I will tell you where it stops being useful for your house.
Here is single-family data for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro from the monthly NTREIS report, which is MLS data. I compared July 2025 with December 2025, because the holiday market is easiest to see next to the summer market.
The honest read has two sides. New listings fell much faster than pending sales, so the "less competition" argument is real. A buyer looking in December has about half as many brand-new homes to look at. But the number of buyers signing contracts fell too, by about 31 percent. So fewer buyers are shopping, and there are fewer homes for them to shop.
For where things stand now, Realtor.com data published through FRED shows 29,364 active DFW listings in September 2026, about 2 percent below a year earlier, and a median of 62 days on market. That is a different dataset, so do not compare it directly to the MLS figures above.
The same data shows a slower sale and a softer price. Days on market ran 16 days longer in December, and sold-to-list was almost two points lower. On a $1,000,000 list price, 1.9 points is about $19,000.
I want to be careful with that. It is a metro number across all prices, it may reflect a different mix of homes, and homes closing in December may have been listed back in the fall. So I am not telling you a December listing costs you $19,000. I am telling you nobody can show from this data that December gets you a better price, and the numbers lean the other way.
Also note what January does. New listings went from 6,321 in December to 9,683 in January 2026, up 53 percent. The quiet window is short. If you list in December and sit, you are in the January pack with an older listing date.
Nobody I can find surveys buyers by the week they shop, so I will not pretend to know. The best statewide picture comes from the 2026 Texas Homebuyers and Sellers Report from Texas REALTORS, which covers all of July 2024 through June 2025. Keep in mind this is every season, not the holidays.
Two of those are worth thinking about. An 8-week median search means many people writing an offer in December probably started looking in the fall, so the December buyer may have already seen what is on the market. That is my inference, not a survey finding. And since most Texas buyers moved less than 30 miles, I would not build a holiday plan around the out-of-state corporate transferee.
Relocation is a common holiday pitch, and the data does not support much of it. Only 9 percent of Texas sellers cited a job relocation as a top reason, compared with 28 percent moving closer to friends or family. NAR's 2024 migration report found 43 percent of agents said job relocation played no role in their client's purchase. Relocation buyers exist. They are not a reason to list on their own.
The seller side tells you something too. Only 17 percent of Texas sellers wanted to sell as quickly as possible, and 45 percent could wait for the right offer. So most Texas sellers were not in a rush, and if you are not either, you do not have to be in this market at all.
Here is what I can verify, and it is less than you would like.
I did not find a public, verifiable December breakdown for Southlake. For your specific street, I would pull the MLS numbers rather than lean on a metro average, and I would look at how homes near your price actually moved last winter. Online estimates will not do that for you, and here is why.
List over the holidays if you have a reason to, such as a job change, a home you already bought, or a move that has a date on it. Then price it like it needs to sell, because December buyers are not the crowd you want to test a high number on.
If your only reason is a story you heard about serious December buyers, wait until you have looked at your own numbers. There is no prize for listing in December, and the data does not hand you one. The downside of waiting is that you join the January wave of new listings, so get the house ready now either way.
Here is what I would do with you: pull your closed comps, see how many homes in your price range are active right now, and decide from that. My selling guide covers the rest of the process, and this post on appraisal gaps matters at Southlake prices. The numbers here are from past months, so this holiday season may look different.
Not automatically, but the DFW data does not show an advantage on price. In December 2025, new listings were 51 percent below July, which cuts competition, but pending sales were down 31 percent, homes took longer and sold-to-list was lower. I could not find public December data for Southlake alone, so pull your own comps.
I could not find a study that measures it. The closest fact is that Texas buyers searched a median of 8 weeks, so a December buyer may have been looking since fall. That is an inference, not a survey result.
The data does not support leaning on them. In the 2026 Texas REALTORS report, 9 percent of sellers cited job relocation, and 54 percent of buyers moved less than 30 miles. NAR's 2024 migration report found 43 percent of agents said job relocation played no role.
Thinking about listing before the new year, or waiting? Talk it through with me and I will pull the numbers for your street. You can also check what your home is worth or see my Southlake page.
REALTOR® · BHHS PenFed Realty Texas
I help buyers and sellers across the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex — Fort Worth, Burleson, Southlake, Crowley and Keller, and the surrounding Dallas area. I write these because they are the questions I answer on the phone every week, and most people never get a straight answer to them. If you have one I have not covered, ask me — I will probably turn it into the next post.
