Winter home searching----best time to purchase?

Every year home buyers who begin their home search at the end of summer set goals to purchase before Thanksgiving or before Christmas. The goal of being settled in for the holidays becomes overwhelming with handling a house hunt, vacations, & holiday planning all bundled together. To top it off lenders are usually working with skeleton crews during the holidays so loans tend to take a bit longer to process. Even with all this in mind, Winter is the by far the best time to purchase a property, especially foreclosure property, for a number of reasons.

REASON ONE---LESS COMPETITION
Spring brings out all of the 'lookie-lou's' and the income tax refund buyers. Summertime brings out the relocating and families looking to find a new home before school starts. Fall is usually the left over crowd from summer and a few stragglers. With less buyers in the market you have less multiple offer situations and less showing activity on listings so sellers tend to get more motivated. Sellers who keep their homes on the market will see that buyers that are out in the winter are SERIOUS. They brave the elements in search of a new home and are more motivated to get things done by year end.

REASON TWO--YEAR END CLEARANCE
When it comes to short sales and foreclosures, the banks, asset managers, investors, and lenders have incentives to close out the books and every sale counts. Many lenders need to hit sales goals and will push some loans through, however, larger lenders seem to be the most affected by the holidays with shorter hours and vacations. Banks are looking to get stale assets off of their books and not carry these properties over into the new year. They can sense the slowing of the activity in the winter and don't want to hedge their bets on the next season's traffic increase.

REASON THREE--MOTIVATED SELLERS
As I mentioned earlier, sellers who still have homes on the market in the winter are not just testing the waters. They need to SELL! They too feel the pressure to close before year's end and will become more motivated as the activity decreases. All of the resales that were testing the market have taken their homes off the market for the holidays and will "see what happens in the Spring."

REASON FOUR--INDUSTRY SLOW DOWN UNCOVERS DEALS
As the housing market slows every winter, so do the home inspectors, interior designers, movers, & contractors. You can likely get discounts on these services due to the lack of work and get it done in a timely fashion!!!

REASON FIVE--INTEREST RATES
In four of the last years, interest rates have been lower in December than they were in the spring/summer months. Even with market crash of 07 and the bounce back of 2009 it has still been advantageous to purchase later in the year.