The Best Times of the Year to Purchase a Home

By Heather Munro | Comments

While sellers will love the flock of homebuyers that seem to arrive every spring and summer, it tends to make the competition very fierce for the buyers. This competition, along with fewer affordable houses and rising mortgage rates, has turned away many buyers recently. In fact, July experienced the biggest drop in home sales in two years. If you are looking to purchase a home in the near future, you are going to want to wait for an opportunity when you have fewer competitors and cheaper options. So, when is the best time to purchase a home?

Fall

Many of your competitors looking to purchase a home will have children. Since most of these homebuyers may not want to move before starting a new school year, there will be slightly less competition. According to national housing data, home prices tend to drop the most during August and September, right around when the school year commences.

Additionally, there is usually less inventory in the fall, but this isn’t a bad thing. Deals are often still better because sellers are looking to sell their home before the year ends. Sellers may also be desperate to capture the attention of homebuyers, since there are fewer people looking for a home. As a result, they will likely lower their asking price. Sellers have been shown to be more open to negotiation during this time as well.

Winter

As Winter approaches in the months of November and December, the housing inventory further decreases. At this time, the cold weather and holidays usually discourage people from wanting to sell or purchase a home. If you are one of the brave and want to purchase a home during the winter anyway, you may get an excellent deal. This deal, however, might be very difficult to find, since the number of homes on the market will be scarce. If a home is available, it is possible that the seller will rather give you a low-price than wait until the Spring to sell.

Trust Champion Title & Settlements with Your Title Services

Champion Title is a full-service title insurance agency providing title insurance and closing support to streamline closings and increase compliance for our diverse clientele including home buyers. We fully embrace technology and are proud to offer clients myriad tools and services to efficiently and accurately assist them with all of their closing needs. For more information, contact us today!