If you do a quick search for the best time to buy a home, you’ll find a variety of conflicting answers. In reality, every season comes with a different set of benefits for home-buyers, and fall is no exception—especially around the Triangle!
If you’re gearing up to buy a new home over the next few weeks, here are all the perks that come with purchasing during the fall season.
Sellers are Motivated
Fall sellers usually fall into two categories (no pun intended): they either want to sell by the holidays, or their home is still sitting on the market after the busy summer season. In both cases, you’ll find sellers to be extra motivated to make a deal.
Depending on just how desperate a seller is, you could negotiate a significant price drop or a few extra repairs. In short: it’s a season of deals!
There’s Less Competition
There’s a reason summer is a busy time for home-buying—it’s a convenient window between the school year and the holiday season, so more people have the free time to make a move. Since school is in session and the holidays are fast-approaching, fall is typically less trafficked by buyers.
Again, that’s a major perk for you. Oftentimes, homes in the Triangle can have multiple offers within hours, which can then lead to competitive bidding wars. Fewer buyers means fewer offer, so a bidding war is much less likely.
Take Your Time
Since there are fewer serious buyers looking for a home, you get to take your time on choosing which one you like best. During the summer and spring, you may have to make an offer on a home within hours of seeing it. During the fall and winter, you can take the time to weigh your options more thoroughly, which prevents any impulse buys.
While you should still act quickly when you find a home you like, you won’t feel nearly as much pressure to speed along the process. This gives you more time to plan ahead and avoid issues further down the road!
Get a Better Look at the Property
In summer and spring, it’s easy to hide faults around the home with a full garden or bright and flowery decorations. In the fall, you can see a home’s true colors.
Is the interior dark and depressing without full sunshine? Are there chips in the siding that the bushes previously hid away? Are the foundation cracks more glaring now that they aren’t masked by the garden? During fall, any of these issues will be in plain sight, with nowhere to hide.
Curious about More Buying Benefits?
This is far from the end of the list—and there are tons of other perks to buying a home in the fall that we’d love to share with you! Just give us a call, and we can talk details.
In the meantime, feel free to explore our buying resources, learn more about the area with out with our in-depth guides, and check out our specialized search tool to narrow down your options!