For most real estate agents, Boxing Day means a well-earned break after a busy year. But while offices are closed and open homes are on hold, prospective buyers are still scrolling through listings, comparing properties and planning their next move.
It raises an interesting question for agents preparing their summer campaigns: if buyers are already looking, why wait until January to put a property in front of them?
Clint Harris, Propery Partner at The Agency in Toukley, NSW, believes the traditional approach of holding listings until the new year can mean missing an opportunity to reach buyers before more properties enter the market.
Clint has been using Boxing Day launches as part of his summer sales strategy, drawing on his background in digital advertising and the seasonal patterns he has observed across the major property portals.
“It just makes sense. If we’re going to invest the same amount of money, let’s allocate it when people are looking the most, because that’s the precursor to inspections and decision-making,” he says.
The strategy is built around a distinction that agents sometimes overlook: buyers do not necessarily need to be ready to inspect or make an offer when a property first appears online. They simply need to start considering it.
Buyers are researching before January arrives
The Christmas and New Year period creates an unusual dynamic in the property market. While many agents and vendors are taking a break, prospective purchasers have an opportunity to browse listings and discuss their plans for the year ahead.
And data from REA Group suggests that early research can play an important role in generating enquiries once the new year begins.
According to the company’s Summer Insights 2026 report, one in eight buyer enquiries made in January relates to a property the buyer first viewed in December.
The report also found that realestate.com.au recorded 216 million visits to its Buy section over summer 2025–26, a 13 per cent increase on the previous summer and buyer enquiries rose 14 per cent year-on-year.
Listing saves and shares were also up seven per cent, indicating increased engagement with properties during the summer period.
Summer was the portal’s second-busiest season, attracting an average monthly audience of 12.6 million people, almost 800,000 more than the previous summer.
For Clint, the figures reinforce the importance of getting a property onto a buyer’s shortlist before they are ready to take the next step.
“What we know is that it’s a research period, not a decision-making period,” he says.
“I think that’s important to articulate at the start. We’re positioning your property to be researched, not necessarily decided upon in those first couple of weeks.”
Rather than expecting immediate offers, the aim is to give buyers time to become familiar with a property before inspections and negotiations begin in earnest.
Clint believes this early exposure can be particularly valuable in an auction campaign, where purchasers often need several weeks to complete their due diligence and develop the confidence to bid.
“If you’re going to launch your property in week three and we’ve had a three-week head start, we’ve probably already built some rapport between that property and the prospective buyer,” he says.
That familiarity matters because buying a home is rarely an impulsive decision. Buyers may return to a listing several times, discuss it with family members, request documentation and compare it with competing properties before arranging an inspection.
By the time another property launches in mid-January, an earlier listing may already have secured a place on their shortlist.
Clint believes the potential for reduced listing competition over the holiday period is another advantage, particularly when buyers are actively researching properties but many agencies have yet to resume their usual marketing schedules.
From online interest to actual offers
While the broader REA figures demonstrate the level of buyer activity over summer, Clint’s experience provides an example of how an early launch can translate into offers.
At 15 Kalele Avenue, Halekulani, a property launched on Boxing Day 2025 attracted four strong offers before going under contract on 14 January 2026, after 19 days on the market.
According to the campaign information provided by Clint’s team, the result was helped by reduced listing competition, buyers having more time to research properties and agents remaining available to manage enquiries and inspections.
By the time many businesses were reopening between 5 and 12 January, the campaign was already well advanced, with negotiations underway.
The example highlights an important consideration for agents contemplating a summer launch. Putting a property online during a quieter period may help attract attention, but converting that interest into offers still depends on having the resources to respond to buyers and facilitate inspections.
Clint has also shared a 20-day listing performance report covering 26 December to 14 January, providing an insight into how advertising exposure can be structured over the holiday period.
The campaign recorded 2,224 total listing views, with search results accounting for 1,118 views, or approximately half the total.
Search-result activity was strongest at the beginning of the campaign, particularly on Boxing Day and 27 December, while overall daily views increased again in early January.
The early-January increase coincided with activity attributed to Audience Maximiser, a digital advertising product designed to reach relevant buyers beyond the property portal, including through Facebook, Instagram and other websites.
Clint says the additional advertising was scheduled to activate on the seventh day of the campaign, providing another opportunity to reach buyers as they returned to their normal routines.
Audience Maximiser accounted for 487 views, or 22 per cent of the total, while notifications generated another 120 views.
The approach illustrates how agents can stagger their marketing activity across the holiday period, rather than concentrating all their advertising around the initial launch.
It also offers a reminder that listing views are only one measure of campaign performance. Strong online engagement needs to be supported by enquiries, inspections and ultimately offers before agents can assess whether a particular launch strategy has delivered a better result.
He says benefit of starting early is not simply about being first to market, but giving buyers more time to develop an interest in a property before competing stock arrives.
The preparation behind a successful summer campaign
Of course, launching a property on Boxing Day requires more than uploading a listing while everyone else is on holidays.
Clint says one of the biggest challenges is that the ideal time to reach buyers is not necessarily the most convenient time for agents, photographers, marketing teams or vendors.
“The work’s got to be done. This is a game of preparation and planning, and that’s probably why we have less competition,”he says.
In his approach, photography is completed by mid-December, with marketing materials, documentation and necessary compliance work finalised before the Christmas shutdown.
A coming-soon campaign can begin around 22 December, followed by the full online launch on Boxing Day.
The first scheduled inspections then take place in early January, allowing buyers who have spent the holiday period researching properties to move into the next stage of the process.
For auction properties, Clint favours a longer campaign extending into early February, giving purchasers time to complete their due diligence before the scheduled sale.
He says the extended timeframe reflects the way buyers actually behave, rather than an assumption that a longer campaign necessarily indicates weak interest.
“We find with auction campaigns that many buyers research the property in the first two weeks,” he says.
As the auction approaches, those buyers may become more active, arranging further inspections, reviewing documentation and deciding whether they are prepared to compete.
But the strategy is not without challenges. Agents need to ensure they can respond to enquiries during a period when many staff, suppliers and prospective purchasers may be away. There is also the risk of taking on too many listings without sufficient resources to service them properly.
Clint limits his own Boxing Day campaign to 15 properties, explaining that the decision is based on maintaining service standards and providing suitable inspection times.
“If we start taking on 20 properties and launching them all at the same time, some vendors aren’t going to get the same level of service they would if we limited it to 15,” he says.
The principle applies well beyond the holiday period; additional listings are only valuable if agents have the capacity to manage them effectively.
Clint is also cautious about launching properties late in November or early December without enough time to complete a campaign before Christmas.
If a property fails to sell before the shutdown, it may spend several weeks accumulating days on market while agents and buyers are away, only to face fresh competition when new listings arrive in January.
“December is a real touch-and-go month to launch a property.”
He believes having a clear campaign structure helps manage those risks, while giving vendors greater certainty about what will happen during a period when the market can otherwise feel unusually quiet.
That includes setting measurable expectations around buyer engagement rather than waiting until the end of a campaign to assess whether it is working.
Clint says his team looks for 10 buyer groups through a property in the first two weeks, along with at least one offer, using those measures as an early indication of whether pricing and positioning are appropriate.
If those benchmarks are not met, the team reviews the price and competing listings rather than allowing the campaign to drift.