Homebuying

Is There A Better Time Of The Year To Buy A Home?

If we know one thing for sure it is that you’ve googled countless question after question about the best timing to buy a house, best tactics to use while shopping, or what a pre-approval is.

We’ve tackled the pre-approval question in our blog posts before, but this time around we wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of whether there was a better time to shop for a home or whether that was just a bigger myth.

The short answer, since we don’t want to keep you on the edge of your seat, is no, there isn’t a best season to buy a new home. For as simple as that may seem though, it’s actually a pretty layered no with some caveats (and hidden tips) that come with it.

Our Suburbit real estate expert, Holly Giordano, put it best when she told us that it’s less about the perfect season in the year and more about the right season in a person (or family’s) life.

Below are 3 things to keep in mind that Giordano shared on when the best time is to buy a home.

Your first step shouldn’t be the season on the calendar

When you start getting the inkling that a larger home is on the horizon for you and your family, focus on starting exactly where you are. Ask yourself questions like, why you want to move? When you would ideally want to move by? Do you have to start saving or do you have enough in the bank to start looking now?

“Study the market, choose whens the best time for your family, and go from there,” advises Giordano. “[Then] give yourself 4 to 6 months [lead time] to feel good about your purchase.”

If you’re just starting to save, try to add about a year of saving to that time frame, this way you’re not pinching pennies on either side of the scale.

Go with your gut and leave yourself room to negotiate

You want to make smart moves during the home-buying process, but you don’t want to linger. “If you find something you really love and the price is right, go for it,” suggests Giordano. “Because someone else will if you don’t.” And the last thing you want is to get stuck in a bidding war. Instead of waiting for the price of a home to go down on its own by chance, if you really love it, use that exact moment as an opportunity to negotiate the price down in any way you can.

While there aren’t perfect seasons, there are tired and distracted seasons

There’s something about the heart of the summer and the heart of the holidays that lend themselves to ideal prices if you’re able to find a home you really love. “Usually by June and definitely into July and August houses are generally very negotiable at that point because going into the summer people start to take reductions,” explains Giordano. Same goes for November and December when the winter holidays take forefront in a seller’s mind and allow for some wiggle room on the side of the buyer.

If you’re starting to look in the spring, know that there may be some great finds come mid-summer, but that you’ll be erring on the side of what’s best for your family if you take something in May that fits just right on all accounts.