By Chad Taylor, the Taylor-Made Team
About a third of Americans hit the road for the holidays every year, mostly to see family. The other half stays put and keep things cozy at home. Either way, it’s pretty clear that when the holidays roll around, people want to be in the place that feels like home.
Because my team helps our community move every day of the week, it is easy to forget something important: people do not pack up boxes, hire movers, and stress over closings just for the fun of it. They do it because the end result matters. They are after a place that feels like theirs.
This time of year, always pulls me back to my childhood home at 12 Laffite Circle in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I can still smell that cinnamon potpourri from Tipton and Hurst. My mom had it going in every room, and it practically made my dad choke. I remember helping her decorate the tree with Christmas music in the background, and then, after the new year, dragging that real tree out the front door and leaving a perfect pine needle outline in the carpet. Those core memories, as my niece Lilly calls them, are as clear as if they happened yesterday.
Those moments stick with you. Home is not just where the heart is. It is where your memories live. It is where you are comfortable, where your quirks make sense, and where your people know exactly who you are.
And that is why homeownership hits differently during the holidays. Most of the year a house is just a place you come and go from, but in December it becomes something else. It becomes where the laughter happens, where the chaos happens, where traditions are kept alive, where the burnt cookies come out of the oven, and where the same stories get told every single year whether anyone asked for them or not.
Now, I tried really hard not to wander into real estate nerd territory in this column, but I read something this week I cannot unsee. First time homebuyers represented only 21 percent of buyers this year, which is the lowest since 1981, and the average first time buyer is now 40. Twenty years ago that number was around 30.
That ten-year delay matters. It is ten years of missed equity, roughly 150,000 dollar’s worth for a lot of families, and ten fewer years of making memories in a place that is truly theirs. That trend deserves attention, and I will tackle it more deeply in another column.
But on Christmas Eve, here is the simple truth: a home is more than a financial asset. It is where life happens. It is where stories are built. It is where people gather because it is where they belong.
Tonight, whether you are traveling across the country or simply walking from the kitchen to the living room, I hope you land somewhere that feels like home. That is the real gift of the season.
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