The holidays can be a great time to buy a home. Buyers can get some great deals fueled by motivated sellers looking to sell quickly for a number of reasons and with fewer buyers in competition, bidding wars are seldom what they are in the summer months. That doesn’t mean that buying during the holidays doesn’t present some unique challenges.
These challenges take a special skill set for buyers, and you should be prepared for a few curve balls to be thrown your way. Here are our tips for buying during the holiday season.
Plan Accordingly
Buying a home during the holidays potentially means reaching deep into your pockets for down payment money as well as holiday gift buying. Unless you’re ready for both expenditures at the same time, buying a home while you’re otherwise getting presents for your friends and family can put a big strain on you financially.
Make sure you plan for this and have enough cash put away to take care of both of those aspects of your holiday spending. To some, this can be easily remedied by spending less on gifts with the understanding that more family time is in order. Be reasonable and try to keep your spending controlled and put your money towards your new home instead.
Find Motivated Sellers, Builders, or Investors
The holidays often find buyers in a position of power with many sellers, builders, and investors looking to offload last minute properties in order to balance their financial books. As a buyer, cash in on these sort of scenarios by seeking out those motivated by selling properties.
These sort of deals may be hard to come by as they likely aren’t published as widely as many real estate listings, so you may need to do some digging and work with a well-connected agent in order to find what you’re looking for. A good local agent can go a long way to helping you find some holiday deals.
Use a Local, Connected Agent
That brings us to our next point. A local agent can help you a great deal by finding some otherwise unlisted or less marketed properties that may not be on your radar. Local real estate agents are often well connected and can give you a heads up on properties that you can’t find listings on or listings that haven’t quite hit the market yet.
One of the biggest advantages of having a local agent that knows the territory is that they can help expedite your home purchase and make sure you can close on your home before the holidays. With most of America coming to a slow crawl as Thanksgiving approaches, real estate deals can either happen very quickly or very slowly. A good agent can make sure they happen fast and get you into your new home as soon as possible.
Be Ready to Close Quickly
If you are fortunate enough to find a motivated seller or investor looking to sell quickly, then you also need to be ready to close just as quickly. For many investors specifically, closing before the end of the year could be a big factor for their business books. That said, make sure all of your ducks are in a row for closing if and when it happens faster than you otherwise expected.
First and foremost, make sure your financing is in order by contacting Tidewater Mortgage Services, Inc. Tidewater has experience helping close quickly and getting you pre-qualified for the funding needed in a timely manner. Don’t let a fast holiday sale fall through by not being prepared! Call Tidewater today!
