The thought of putting on your parka and heading out into -25 degree weather deters even the most strong willed Edmonton and Sherwood Park home buyers. With colder weather, people naturally tend to hibernate indoors. This is a great advantage to a first time home buyer, or a buyer who can buy first and sell their home at a later date and it’s the perfect time for an investor to purchase.
1. Motivated sellers
The winter months bring naturally lower activity, even with all the winter festivals. This is the exact reason why Realtors will recommend sellers to hold off and list their home to sell in the spring. But not everyone can wait for the spring market, there may be circumstances that a seller must sell, for example if they have purchased another home and don’t want to carry two mortgages, or maybe there has been a job transfer amongst many other reasons. When sellers are motivated to sell they are more willing to negotiate on price, household items to include in the sale, condition removals and closing dates.
2. Few buyers to compete with
This is an advantage to buying in the winter, because you have few buyers to compete with. When the market is slower, the buyer gets the upper hand and the purchase is less stressful as the chances of falling into multiple offer situations is minimal.
3. Pricing
A slower market can often stall or at the very least slow down rising home prices. In the greater Edmonton area including Sherwood Park we have seen sales dip slightly and overall be fairly flat these past couple years, but generally home values often increase slightly in the spring real estate market due to competition from more buyers.
