Take off December and Why not Q1 of 2009 as Well?

I keep hearing agents say that they are going to take the rest of the year and start fresh on New Years. Well that all sounds great but I do not know about you but I do not have a faucet of buyers and sellers to turn on and off as I wish. Real estate is like popcorn, once you apply the heat it takes a while to see any results. So the theory of taking off the rest of the year really means that you will begin to prospect in January and if you are lucky will have some buyers and sellers with 30 days and hopefully the closings will start within about 60 days. With a little quick math that adds up to zero cash for the beginning of next year. Now is the time to be agressively going after clients for next year and trying to get those fence sitters to move before the beginning of the year and tap into some of the benefits for closing before Jan 1. For me, historically, December has been a good month so the last thing I would want to do is to shut it down before I rang up all I could for the year. A few extra closings makes our tree look a little better each year. Do not take December for granted, it could turn out to be your best month of the year.