Before we talk about real estate, let’s start where Memorial Day actually starts. Not with the cookouts or the mattress sales or the extra day off — but with the men and women who didn’t come home. Memorial Day is the day we set aside to remember the people who gave their lives serving this country. The families who carry that loss every single day, not just on the last Monday in May. It’s worth pausing on that before anything else. HouseJet extends its gratitude to all of the servicemen and women who gave their lives to provide the protections and freedoms we all enjoy each and every day.
Let's not forget that the long weekend exists because people sacrificed everything so the rest of us could have ordinary days, ordinary plans, and ordinary dreams.
So with that in mind, and with real respect for what the day is really about, let’s talk about why Memorial Day weekend matters for the housing market too.
For decades, Memorial Day has been the unofficial starting gun for the summer buying season. It’s a little arbitrary — the market doesn’t actually flip a switch on a Monday in May — but the rhythm is real. Families wait for the long weekend to start touring homes in earnest. Open house activity jumps. Listings that have been sitting quietly all spring suddenly get a fresh wave of foot traffic. And the whole market shifts into a higher gear that usually holds through July.
If you’ve ever noticed that there seem to be way more open house signs out the week after Memorial Day, you’re not imagining it. Sellers time it on purpose. They want their home to be fresh and appealing right when the summer crowd starts looking.
There’s a practical reason behind all of it: the calendar. A lot of buyers and sellers are quietly racing the same clock — the school year. Families who want to be settled into a new home before the kids start school in the fall know the math. If you want to close, move, and get unpacked before late August, you need to be shopping seriously by late May and into June. Wait too long and you’re moving boxes the same week you’re buying school supplies, which nobody wants to do.
That’s why the weeks right after Memorial Day are some of the most motivated of the entire year. Sellers who list now genuinely want to be done before fall — they’re not just testing the market for fun. And buyers who are out looking right now tend to be serious, because they’re working backward from that same school-year deadline. When both sides have a real reason to get a deal done, deals get done.
Now here’s the part of Memorial Day that doesn’t get talked about enough, and it ties right back to the meaning of the day: VA loans.
If you’ve served — or you’re an active-duty service member, a veteran, or in many cases a surviving spouse — you may have access to one of the best home financing tools in the entire country, and a lot of eligible buyers don’t fully realize what they’ve earned. A VA loan isn’t a favor or a handout. It’s a benefit that was earned through service, and Memorial Day is a fitting time to make sure the people who earned it actually know what it can do.
The headline feature is the one most people have heard of: zero down payment. On a conventional loan, a buyer might need to bring 5%, 10%, or 20% to the table — on a $400,000 home, that can mean coming up with $20,000 to $80,000 in cash before you even get the keys. A VA loan can let qualified buyers purchase with no down payment at all. For a lot of veterans, that single feature is the difference between buying this year and waiting another three or four years to save.
But the down payment is just the start. VA loans also tend to come with competitive interest rates — often a bit lower than comparable conventional loans — which matters even more in a higher-rate environment like we’re in right now. They typically don’t require private mortgage insurance, which is a monthly cost conventional buyers with low down payments usually can’t avoid. And they come with built-in protections and reasonable qualifying terms that were designed to actually work for the people who served, not against them.
Put it together and a VA loan can save an eligible buyer tens of thousands of dollars up front and hundreds of dollars a month for the life of the loan. That’s real money. That’s the kind of head start that changes what neighborhood you can afford and how comfortable your monthly budget feels.
This is where HouseJet has a recommendation worth passing along, especially this time of year. If you’ve served, or you have a veteran in your family who’s thinking about buying, take the time to actually sit down and understand the VA benefit before assuming a home is out of reach. A lot of veteran buyers walk away from the idea of homeownership because they think they need a giant down payment, and they simply don’t. HouseJet’s advice is to talk with a lender who genuinely knows VA loans — not every lender does — and to make sure your agent understands how VA offers work, because they have a few quirks around appraisals and paperwork that an experienced agent handles smoothly. Used right, the VA loan is one of the most powerful tools out there, and the people who earned it deserve to use it to its full potential.
Now, back to timing for everyone — veteran or not. There’s a common assumption that you should wait until the heart of summer to buy or sell, when activity peaks. Mike Oddo, CEO of HouseJet, sees it differently.
“The buyers and sellers who act in the few weeks right after Memorial Day almost always have more leverage than the ones who wait for peak summer,” Oddo said in a recent conversation. “Early in the season, motivated sellers are pricing to move and there’s less competition from other buyers, so a prepared buyer can negotiate. On the flip side, a seller who lists right after Memorial Day catches that first serious wave of summer buyers before the market floods with inventory in July. By the time everyone piles in at peak summer, the leverage flattens out and you’re just one of the crowd. The edge belongs to the people who move early.”
That’s the insight a lot of folks miss. Peak summer feels like the obvious time to jump in because that’s when everything is busiest. But busiest isn’t the same as best. When the market is flooded — more buyers competing, more listings to wade through — your individual leverage actually goes down. The window right after Memorial Day, when serious players are active but the crowd hasn’t fully arrived yet, is often where the best deals quietly happen.
So if you’re thinking about making a move this year, a few things are worth keeping in mind. If you’re buying, get your financing lined up now so you can act fast when the right home shows up early in the season. If you’re a veteran, find out exactly what your VA benefit can do before you assume anything is off the table. And if you’re selling, recognize that the weeks right after Memorial Day put your home in front of the most motivated buyers of the year — pricing it right from day one lets you ride that wave instead of missing it.
Memorial Day is, first and always, a day to remember and honor the people who gave everything. Holding onto that is what matters most. But there’s something quietly fitting about the fact that the same weekend kicks off the season when so many families chase the dream of a place to call their own — a dream those very sacrifices helped protect.
However you spend the long weekend, take a moment to remember why we have it. And if a new home is part of your plans this year, know that the season is just getting started — and the people who move thoughtfully and early tend to be the ones who look back glad they did.
