Should You Advertise Your Property Project Over Christmas?

You’ve seen it every year. 

Mid December rolls around and property marketing goes quiet. 

Ads are paused. Campaigns are frozen. Budgets are held until “everyone is back in January.”

But here’s the twist most developers overlook. The Christmas period is one of the highest attention, lowest competition windows of the entire year. Buyers are relaxed. They’re scrolling more than usual. They have time to browse listings, think about lifestyle changes and daydream about the kind of home that would make next year better than this one.

So if you pull your ads during this period, you’re not saving budget. You’re handing visibility, market share and early momentum to the developers who stay live.

The holidays are not a shutdown period. They’re an opportunity.

Buyers Don’t Switch Off for Christmas. They Slow Down and Pay More Attention

Developers often assume December is a dead zone. 

“Everyone is on holiday.” 

“People aren’t thinking about buying property.” 

“They’ll look again in January.”

Look at how people actually behave.

They’re on the couch after lunch, scrolling realestate.com.au.

They’re at the beach thinking about moving closer to the water. 

They’re sitting with family talking about upsizing, downsizing or finally buying that investment. 

And because they’re off work, they’re browsing with more attention and less pressure.

The holiday mindset creates the perfect environment for early stage engagement. 

You’re not trying to force them into a contract. 

You’re planting the seed while their brain is open to new ideas.

And if your campaign is the only one still showing up? 

Even better.

The 5th Quarter: The Most Underrated Moment in Property Marketing

Let’s talk about the days between Christmas and New Year. That strange, timeless stretch where no one really knows what day it is.

This period is known as the 5th quarter. And for property developers, it’s a quiet goldmine.

People have:

• More down time

• More patience to explore

• More emotional bandwidth

• More interest in planning lifestyle changes for the new year

And because most developers hit pause, ad costs often drop while attention spikes. In other words: You are paying less to reach more people who are more receptive.

The 5th quarter is the moment when a potential buyer might click through your ads purely because they finally have the time to think about something other than work.

If you’re absent, someone else’s project takes that space.

Your Audience Completely Changes Over the Holidays

Here’s where holiday advertising becomes even more interesting. Your December audience is not the same as your mid year audience.

You’re suddenly speaking to:

• Tourists visiting lifestyle destinations

• Interstate families exploring coastal suburbs

• Locals with two weeks off and actual time to browse

• Downsizers quietly planning their next moves

• Investors who finally have mental clarity after a long year

This creates a buyer mix you won’t see during any normal month of the year.

Take the Gold Coast as an example. December and January transform the region. You suddenly have thousands of potential buyers who are walking the beaches, exploring the neighbourhoods and imagining what life could look like if they lived there full time.

If you keep your targeting the same as March or September, you miss them. If you adjust for holiday behaviour, you capture enquiry from people who are emotionally primed to think about lifestyle upgrades.

Why Share of Voice Over Christmas Matters More Than the Perfect Creative

You don’t need a big Christmas concept. You just need to stay visible.

A lot of developers pull back in December. They pause ads, stop posting, or push everything to January. When that happens, your share of voice rises without you lifting your budget. A smaller field means your project gets more attention for the same spend.

That’s the upside.

The flip side is that other industries ramp things up. Retail, travel, finance, food delivery and gifting brands all push hard across Google and Meta. Their activity can drive up costs and squeeze space. If you stop marketing at the same time your own category goes quiet and the rest of the market goes loud, your project disappears completely.

Keeping activity steady over Christmas means:

• Buyers keep seeing your project while other developers go quiet

• You hold your place in the feed as other industries flood it

• Your project stays top of mind heading into the January surge

• CPCs often fall in the property category because competition thins

• Your landing pages keep collecting warm, low friction leads ready for Q1

By the time everyone relaunches in January, you’re four weeks ahead. Your audience already recognises you, remembers you, and has seen your offering more than once.

That head start is something you can’t buy in February.

Why Developers Lose Momentum When They Turn Everything Off

When a developer pauses advertising in December, here’s what actually happens: 

Your retargeting pools shrink. 

Your audience goes cold. 

Your share of voice disappears. 

Your traffic drops to zero. 

Your January campaign becomes a full restart instead of a continuation.

You didn’t save money. 

You lost momentum. 

And costing yourself four to six weeks of market presence is far more expensive than keeping a slim but consistent campaign running through the holidays.

So Should You Advertise Over Christmas? Absolutely. Here’s Why

• Buyers are relaxed and curious

• They have time to browse

• Competition drops

• Ad costs drop

• Audience mix widens

• Share of voice becomes easier to dominate

• January becomes a warm launch, not a cold restart

The holiday period isn’t a gap in the market. It is an opening. And the developers who understand this come out of January stronger, faster and miles ahead of those who powered down.

The Bottom Line

Christmas is not a marketing blackout. It’s one of the most strategic windows of the year if you know how to use it.

Stay visible while others disappear. 

Adjust your audience to holiday behaviour. 

Take advantage of the 5th quarter. 

Own the share of voice when no one else is trying.

If you do that, you’ll walk into the new year with a warm database, stronger brand recall and a project that already feels familiar to the people who will enquire first.