Should We Move Before or After the Holidays?

Should we move before or after the holidays in metro Atlanta? Move before them if you want this year's gathering in the new home and the contract, the loan and the moving truck can all land ahead of the week you have in mind, and move after them if this year's table belongs where it already stands and January feels like the better place to begin. Our team starts that conversation with your own calendar, then lays the dates of a contract over it.

A move has a season of its own, and so do the holidays. Each one asks for your weekends, your attention and your patience. So the decision underneath this one has little to do with dates. It asks which season you want to be standing in the middle of, the one with the boxes or the one with the table set.

This guide is from Andrew and Jassey Nguyen. NRG Nguyen Realty Group is a real estate team with Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road helping households in Atlanta, Georgia time a move around the calendar they already keep.

What does the calendar already hold?

Before anyone talks about a closing date, it helps to write down what the coming weeks already hold. Who is coming to your home, and for how many nights? Who hosts if you do not? Does anyone in the house close out a year at work, with deadlines that fill the last weeks of December?

In 2026, the federal calendar puts Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, Christmas Day on Friday, December 25, and New Year's Day on Friday, January 1, 2027. Your household's own holidays may fall on other dates, and they belong on the same page.

School breaks belong there too. If they touch your plans, check your district's calendar for the exact dates. Our guide on timing a move around the Cobb County school year shows one way to plan backward from a district's calendar.

Then ask a quieter question. Which gathering would you miss if it happened somewhere else this year, and which one would you gladly hand to someone else? That answer is worth hearing before the arithmetic begins.

What does moving before the holidays ask of you?

It asks for time, so begin by counting it. How many weeks sit between the day you are reading this and the day you want to be unpacked? Lay the rest against that number: finding the home, the contract, the loan and the move itself. Our guide on how long it takes to close on a house in Georgia explains why a purchase with a loan runs on several clocks at once, and why the slowest one sets the pace.

What you would receive in return is a first gathering in the new home, and a new year that opens with the move behind you. It also means hosting from a house that may still be half in boxes, so picture it in detail. Where would your guests sleep? Which boxes could stay closed until January? Would a small dinner feel like a beginning, or like one more thing to carry?

If you are selling as well, showings and packing would share the same weeks as the shopping and the cooking. Whether to put a home on the market at this time of year is its own question, and our guide on the best time of year to list a home in East Cobb covers how a season and your next move fit together.

What does moving after the holidays ask of you?

It asks you to hold a decision open through a full calendar, and that is a reasonable place to be. Your table stays where it is. If this may be the last season in a home you have lived in for years, that could matter to you more than any date.

The weeks in between can still be put to use. A conversation with a lender, a list of what the next home has to hold and an afternoon in the closets with a donation bag need no moving date, and each one is one less thing to do in January.

Weather can change a moving day in the new year, so it helps to ask the moving company what happens if it does.

The one thing to watch is drift. After the holidays can become after spring, and another year has a funny way of becoming another year. A first conversation written on the January calendar keeps the choice yours.

What happens when a contract runs across a holiday week?

The dates in a contract get written down before anyone knows how that week will feel, so read them against the holidays before you sign. Where does the end of your due diligence period land? The closing date? The day you take possession?

One date has its own federal rule. It belongs to the Closing Disclosure, the form that gives the final details of your mortgage loan. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says, "The lender is required to give you the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before you close on the mortgage loan." For that timing, the federal regulation called Regulation Z counts all calendar days except Sundays and the legal public holidays, and it names Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day among them. If your closing falls soon after a holiday, ask your lender to count those days with you.

The people around a closing keep calendars of their own, so these are questions to ask, each in turn. Ask your lender how the holiday weeks fit your loan's timeline. Ask the closing attorney's office which days it is open and holding closings that week. Ask the moving company what it has open around your date, and what happens if a closing moves. Ask your inspector and any contractor about their schedules before you write a due diligence period around them.

What if the year turns in the middle of your move?

January 1 is a date worth a second look if you are buying. Georgia's Department of Revenue says, "Generally, a homeowner is entitled to a homestead exemption on their home and land underneath provided the home was owned by the homeowner and was their legal residence as of January 1 of the taxable year."

So a purchase that closes and becomes your residence in late December, and one that closes in early January, can fall in different tax years for that exemption. Ask the tax office in the county where your next home sits about the details and the filing deadline.

Is there a path between the two?

There can be. A closing can sit on one side of the holidays and the move on the other. A seller in Georgia can stay in the home for a short, agreed time after closing when the buyer agrees in writing before closing, and the buyer's loan can limit how long. Our guide on staying in your home after closing in Georgia walks through what that agreement covers.

The move itself can also come in parts if you hold both homes for a time. A few rooms can go early, and the dining room can go last.

How do we decide, step by step?

These are the steps our team walks through with a household at this time of year.

1. Write down every date already on your calendar from now through the middle of January.
2. Name the one gathering or commitment you would protect above the rest.
3. Check your district's calendar for school breaks, if they touch your plans.
4. Talk with a lender about your timeline, so the weeks you are counting are real ones.
5. Choose your season. Which one do you want to be in the middle of?
6. Choose a target date and a second date behind it, then ask the closing attorney's office and the moving company about both.
7. Put your next step on the calendar, even if the move itself is months away.

What mistakes make this harder?

The first is setting a closing date without looking at the week around it. A date in the last days of the year can look tidy on paper. Who will be at their desk that week, and who will be at your table?

The second is leaving someone's calendar off the page. A year-end at work or a houseful of guests belongs in the plan from the start, since either one can claim the same days as the move.

The third is booking a move with no room behind it. A closing date can shift, and the truck would have to shift with it. Before you book, ask what a change would mean.

The fourth is treating "after the holidays" as a plan. A plan has a date on it, and a first step.

An example

This is an example, not a real client.

A couple in metro Atlanta sit down on a November evening with a paper calendar. They have hosted the same dinner in the same dining room for years, and they have been talking about a different home since summer. Their first instinct is to be in by Thanksgiving.

When they count the weeks, the idea loosens. They have not talked with a lender, and the house they live in needs attention before anyone else walks through it.

So they ask a different question. Which season do they want to be in the middle of? They want this dinner here, one more time.

They spend the weeks that follow on the quieter work, a lender conversation and a few closets, and they put a call with our team on the calendar for the first full week of January. When the new year opens, they have a list and a first date to work from.

Frequently asked questions

Can we close during a holiday week? That depends on the date in your contract, your lender's timeline and the closing attorney's schedule. Ask each of them before you agree to the date.

Does the Friday after Thanksgiving count as a business day for the Closing Disclosure? Under Regulation Z's definition for that disclosure, every calendar day counts except Sundays and the legal public holidays, and the Friday after Thanksgiving is absent from the federal holiday list. Ask your lender to count the dates for your own closing.

Should we call a moving company before we have a closing date? You can. A target date and a second date give that conversation something to work with. Ask what the company can hold, and what happens if the date changes.

Do we have to decide before we talk with anyone? No. You do not have to decide anything before we talk. A first conversation can be about your calendar alone.

The season you choose

Either season can hold a good move. What matters is that you chose it, at your own table, with the dates in front of you.

NRG Nguyen Realty Group is a real estate team with Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road helping households in Atlanta, Georgia time a move around the calendar they already keep. Our team can lay your dates side by side with you, and help you see what each season would ask.

Send us a message: nrgmovesyou.com/contact

Or book a 15-minute discovery call with our team: schedule a call

Andrew and Jassey Nguyen

NRG Nguyen Realty Group

Real Estate Agents in Atlanta, GA

678-743-1586

nrgmovesyou.com

This article is general information, not legal, tax or lending advice. Talk with your closing attorney, your tax advisor and your lender about your own dates.