Sellers look to the spring and summer months to get the most return on their homes. Buyers ought to look to September and October to get the best deals on their future homes.
Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist, said that many homebuyers with children want to buy their new homes in time to “settle in” before school starts in the fall. She also said that national housing data indicates that late August and September tend to have the most drastic price reductions of any time during the year.
“Fall is the last-ditch opportunity for sellers to close before the end of the year,” said Bill Gassett, real estate agent with Re/Max Executive Realty in Hopkinton, MA. With fewer buyers coming through the door, “…sellers tend to price their homes more aggressively…to get buyers’ attention.”
By the time October and November roll around, even fewer buyers and sellers are “In” the market. Gassett recommends that buyers use whatever lull there is during the fall into the holiday months “…to your advantage. Sellers who can’t wait until the spring to sell their homes are even more motivated.”
Jay Phillip Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida Brokerage, encourages buyers to narrow their buying windows by using local housing data. Parker told BankRate, “The best time to buy and/or sell in your area depends on supply and demand as well as local seasonality, climate, economic conditions and historical trends…buyers can’t control supply so they have to look for periods of low demand.”
Periods of low demand, of course, vary from market to market. Low demand in Phoenix may be the sizzling hot months of summer and low demand in Minneapolis may be the frigid months of winter.
Whenever low demand markets happen in your market area, Parker suggest that you educate your buyers about that market so they can pounce on it. “Give them comparisons of high and low demand markets by answering these following questions for them…”
- the number of homes for sale that are comparable to their needs/wants as well as the number of those homes that sold
- the list-to-sales averages on these homes between high and low demand markets
- the number of comparable homes available in 2018 and 2017
- the numbers of days on the market between high and low demand markets
- the numbers of price reductions on comparable homes between high and low demand markets.
Also remind your buyers that, according to Denise Hale of Realtor.com the national inventory of homes listed at $350,000 and above rose +5.7% in July. All these newly available homes are just waiting for Fall buyers to buy them.
