A housing report from the Washington Post. "Plenty of real estate agents note that winter can be a great time for sellers to unload houses and for buyers to find bargains. Sellers are also serious, a plus for buyers."

"'People who put their houses on the market in the second half of December or the first two weeks of January are usually doing so because there's a real need,' said David Kolakowski, a buyer(s) broker in Bethesda."

"This year in particular, with slower home sales, the inventory has not dried up at all, agents said. In the District, for instance, the number of homes for sale was 31 percent higher in November than at the same time last year, according to a report released this week by Peter Clute, an agent in Georgetown."

"'The inventory will most likely come down a little bit in December, but it should still be high,' Clute said. 'There's still four months' worth of inventory out there.'"

"Marc and Gina Ciagne spotted a house in the District's Chevy Chase neighborhood. They were eager to enroll their daughter Jalen in the neighborhood school for kindergarten. So they moved fast. They closed on the house in August and carried two mortgages. They decided not to list their old house on 16th Street NW until after Labor Day."

"'We were apprehensive about buying a new house before putting the old one on sale,' Marc Ciagne said. 'But we kept focusing on the school issue and that helped us justify and rationalize it.'"

"In the old neighborhood they would have paid private school tuition. By moving, the couple planned to save that money, apply it toward their mortgage payments, and hope for the best. In October, when they received an offer, they pushed to close in mid-November instead of mid-December, as the buyers wanted."

"Here's where consumer psychology kicked in. 'We felt really lucky to get it done before the holidays,' Marc Ciagne said. 'We wanted to get it behind us before Thanksgiving. Psychologically, I felt I was going to get really tense if this had to drag on longer.'"

"Keeping a house on the market into the new year, after it has been listed for months, is often a huge mental drain for sellers, especially if they feel the market might slow further the longer they wait, several agents said."

"Beth Armington decided to sell her Bethesda house in July. When a house two blocks away came on the market, she jumped on it. Meanwhile, her old house sat there. The market started to sour. Armington cut the $1.1 million asking price by $100,000 in mid-August and then another $100,000 six weeks later, without any immediate response."

"'Then about a month later came Thanksgiving and we had another open house' -- a rather crowded one, Armington said. Two potential buyers emerged. Last week, the house went under contract for $850,000."

"She said, 'It was the first offer I got and I didn't think I'd get a better one before spring. I didn't think prices would improve before spring and maybe not even then.'"