Home Buying in the Holiday Season

Temperatures are dropping and the holidays are sneaking in on TV commercials and on those pop-up ads. As our focus shifts into menu planning and gift buying home buyers tend to put their search on the back burner. There are a few reasons why the holiday season is the perfect time to stay engaged though. 

Why the holiday season is still a good time to buy

The temperature isn’t the only thing that tends to drop as we near the holiday season. After a competitive selling season those sellers who are still on the market are starting to pivot their plans from “highest purchase price” to “get it sold.” Now is the time to look and see what has been on the market for more than 30 days. If a home is available that sparks your interest this is the time to try to work out a deal.  Sellers who have been offered new, non-remote jobs likely have to move at the beginning of the year. For those people now is the time they have to sell, selling season or not. That means they are likely priced to reflect the activity of the season and understand their number of showings may be lower. This creates a good opportunity for you to pop in to get a more reasonably priced home.  Lastly, most people aren’t looking to move during the holiday season. They are traveling and have their attention elsewhere. This means less competition for those who are willing to overlook some holiday decor in the home and might be willing to close between holidays before the New Year. Less competition means you could likely leave some of the contingencies in the contract that we saw being removed at a high volume in the spring. If a home inspection or appraisal are really important to you (as they should be) and you felt like you kept losing contracts because you wanted to keep those in, now is the time to try to buy.  

What you need to know about buying in the holidays

All that said, what do you need to be prepared for if you go under contract during the holiday season? First, know that there will be several days throughout November, December and early January that banks will be closed. This means your closing may be a little longer than the standard 30 days to give the lender time to get everything in. Second, you may have to overlook some holiday decor or contend with more limited scheduling requests to accommodate the sellers celebrating their holiday with their families. Lastly, it may mean any repair requests that are made might be less likely as it will be harder to get tradesmen out to a house for work during the holiday season. You may have to accept a credit instead of getting a repair in order to keep your purchase moving along.  The holidays can give you more than a few gifts. They might give you the opportunity to become a homeowner before 2022. So tell me, are you going to keep looking for your home during the holiday season or are you taking a break on your search? 

Your Friend,

Jess