What’s The Best Time of Year to Buy A House in Costa Mesa?

We meet lots of buyers in our Orange County real estate endeavors. What is one of the most popular questions? If you guessed what’s the best time of year to buy a house?? You were right.

 

I have always said that the fall was the best time of the year to buy a home, without question. Why? The activity that we as Realtors see in the market drops way, way off. Here’s a little snapshot of our typical year, and this goes for hot or cold markets:

 

January-February: People want to start the new year off and find a home, so we see average-good market activity, but inventory is usually smaller, so the homes that are on the market take advantage of motivated buyers.

 

March-May: Usually a hot market; Buyers have spring fever and the market moves swiftly. The nicest homes or best locations tend to sell for top dollar during this period.

 

June-July: Typical peak of a market cycle, especially for those buyers looking for a school for kids before September school starts.

 

August: Tends to be slower (which usually surprises most people). Why? I think there is a lot of vacation activity and people who were motivated to buy during a calendar year did it already.

 

September-October: Tends to be a very slow market period. Why? Most of the homes that have not sold have been seen by buyers and they are not interested in them. They might need lots of repairs have poor locations, or have some other significant flaw. Lots of people with kids are back to school and focused on their kid's activities at school, so they have their eye off the real estate ball, so to speak.

 

November-December: Pretty dead, as far as the real estate market goes. A lot of sellers who have not received an offer on their property will take their property off of the market. Holidays are coming up, and the period between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas is slow. A lot of buyers will try to jump on good deals at this point in the year.

 

I never had data that suggested these trends were factual, until now. I had always just examined the data in our local market, and known what the “feel” of the market was at a given time. There was an article published this week by RealtyTrac that backed my thought: October seems to be the absolute best time to buy a home. That is a national data survey, but I would concur that holds for Orange County as well.

 

Conversely, what is the best time to sell? It is hard to time the market, but given what I have laid out here, I would time the market so I would put a nicely updated home on the market in March. That would conceivably give you the best chance to sell your home for the highest price. A home that has a poor location or needs significant repairs? That type of home will not rely on the market timing philosophy that I have laid out. Those will need a good Realtor to sell them, and that’s the kind of Realtor you will find I am

 

Colin Delaney – Connect with me at (714) 743-9882 or via email.