5 Holiday Home Buying Trends before the New Year!
Everybody knows the holidays are a great time to spend time with family, but it’s also a great time to snag some great real estate deals. Home buying trends prove some of the best deals you can make during the holidays involve real estate. Whether you’re a real estate investor or simply a savvy home buyer, here are five ways to use holiday home buying trends to your advantage and secure a great deal before the ball drops on New Year's Eve!
1. Less is more (especially when it comes to inventory)
If there’s one undeniable truth about the holidays, it’s that real estate inventory is limited during the holiday months. There’s simply less real estate activity — less people selling less homes — during the holidays. To compound this fact, there are fewer mortgage lenders, realtors, and inspectors available than usual. But rather than seeing this as a major obstacle, this can add up to a huge advantage for home buyers during the holidays: less competition. If you’re able to find a property, there’ll be a lot less buyers — and the strong possibility that you’ll negotiate a favorable price that can put additional savings in your pocket.
2. The power of a motivated seller
If someone is selling a home during the holidays, chances are, they have a compelling reason to do so. This can be for a variety of reasons: impending job relocation, an unexpected event in the family, or the desire to be in that new 3,500-square-foot house by Christmas.
3. Tax benefits
This particular advantage will, obviously, depend on your particular financial situation, and what your tax liability looks like for the current calendar year. But closing on the purchase of a property, in the waning months of a year, can give you major tax advantages heading into the following year. If you itemize deductions, then you might be eligible, with the purchase of a home, to deduct things like points paid upon closing, property taxes, and mortgage interest rates. If you’re buying the house as an investment asset, and have a business entity set up, then there are even more tax benefits available to you.
4. Lower interest rates
Buying real estate in the holiday months does not guarantee your purchase will be secured with a lower interest rate. As anybody with even a modicum of real estate experience knows, interest rates fluctuate and aren’t easily predicted based on the time of year. But, historically, interest rates tend to be lower during the holidays. And not due to “Yuletide cheer,” but limited demand (there’s just less financial business being done in late November and December).
5. Faster closing
Home sellers aren’t the only motivated folks involved in the home-buying process during the holiday months. Lenders, brokers, realtors — even inspectors — are often motivated to get a deal done before the end of the year. This can bring welcome focus and speed to a process that can take longer in non-holiday months. Most parties involved in a home-buying transaction have incentives to finalize the deal as soon as possible. Lenders want to close their books, agents want their commission, and sellers want to, frankly, move on.
Now is still a great time to buy or sell. Let us know how we can help!