Winter is a great time to go house hunting
Winter is a great time to go house hunting. Seriously! Why?
Please Note: This video was originally published on 7th July 2023. While the information presented here may still be valuable, some aspects may be outdated.
Winter is a great time to go house hunting because it rains all the time and it’s cold 🥶❄️🧊
These are perfect conditions to check out a home. Rather than seeing your new home in spring or summer at it’s finest, if you fall in love with a home in winter, imagine how good it will be come summer BBQ time?
- It rains all the time during winter – is there water pooling around the house? That backyard that looks amazing and dry in summer, is it a bog you can’t walk on during winter?
- It’s cold – is the house cold when you walk in? Damp, smells? Is the heatpump on full to give a false sense of warmth?
- The exterior – is it looking a little green? Not you with the winter flu, but the cladding, after being damp. Or are the steps or back deck too slippery to walk on?
- The sun is at it’s lowest – is the house almost permanently in the dark/shade with limited natural light?
Most houses look great in summer, winter is the time you get to see a property at it’s worst and it only gets better from there.
There is less competition 👨👩👧👦👪👩👧👦
When it rains, people don’t go to open homes. They naturally don’t want to get out of the car in the rain or take their wet shoes off inside the house. So, go to the open homes, have the house to yourself, you likely get 1:1 time with the agent to ask as many questions as you like.
There is less competition from families with children at school. It’s the middle of the school year, for families with kids, buying a new home and relocating children into a new school, half way through the year is painful. So they often don’t look until the end of the year, to start fresh with a new school the following year.
For couples looking for a bigger, future family home, middle of the year is a good time.
In general, there is less competition compared to spring or summer when the majority of home loan pre-approvals are requested and everyone is out looking.
Lastly - It’s easier to get hold of people 🤝
Rather than summer when everyone is already is ‘summer holiday mode’ and fully booked out. If you need a building inspector, valuer, moving company...they are generally not as busy. At Christmas time we see 10 day waits for registered valuers (required for first home buyers with less than 20% deposit), everything takes longer.
The downside…👎
Vendors often don’t like to sell during winter, they want their house to look the best to get the highest price (wouldn’t we all?) and not show any of the above, so listings over winter don’t trend as high as spring or early summer time. But then again, you never know, you might just get lucky and find THE house for you.
So what are you waiting for? Looking for a pre approval to winter house hunting? Book a free call with a Tella mortgage expert now.
