SFGate.com

See what’s on the market:

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To see more Bay Area home listings, visit www.realestate. sfgate.com. A: The real estate market, during winter months, is generally pretty quiet, even in the Bay Area. People are traveling or entertaining, taking time off work and thinking of almost anything but real estate. Sometimes, though, things just happen such as job transfers, a growing family or a dire need for a change.

Sometimes there are home sales made on Christmas or New Year’s Day and what a great way to bring in the new year it would be.

Most often, the housing inventory goes down during the holidays because of the above distractions but that doesn’t mean that the market is completely scarce. If you check online, you will see that there continues to be houses and condos for sale. Wouldn’t it be nice to make an offer on a home, in the Bay Area, and not have to compete or overbid?

Come the first of the year and into spring, more homeowners will have for sale signs posted in their front yards and windows and you can be sure that more people will be ready to buy. Take a peek at your favorite real estate website to see what’s going on in a location that you would like to buy this winter. You might be surprised at what you see.

Karin Cunningham, Berkshire Hathaway California Realty, 650-438-3504,

karinc@bhhscalreal.com.