Winter is a good time for homebuyers.
NerdWallet researched two years of homes for sale on realtor.com® in 50 metro areas and found that home prices in January and February were, on average, 8.45 percent lower than homes listed in the summer months, June through August.
However, Jonathan Smoke, realtor.com®’s chief economist said that sales in October and November 2016 were stronger than usual, due to the lack of inventory on the market, so January and February may not see as low of prices as they have in the past. But NerdWallet reported that January is still a good time to buy because, on average, less people are searching for a home, instead waiting for the spring and summer, so there will be less competition. Last year, NerdWallet found there was a decrease of 47 percent in sales in January compared to June. There is also a decrease in inventory. In 2016, there were 21 percent less homes on the market in the summer compared to the winter.
“Prices are likely to increase even more than you typically see in spring because of low levels of inventory and because we didn’t see the normal weakness we see in fall,” Smoke said. “You basically face almost half of the competition with almost the same amount of inventory in the market. This potentially means fewer homes with multiple bidders and more room for negotiating with sellers.”
In the past two Januarys, the median home on the market sold for more than $7,000 under the listing price- making winter a pretty good time for buyers.