Buying a Home During the Holidays [VIDEO]

Question: We’re thinking about buying a home this holiday season. Is that a good idea? Answered by Libby Guthrie

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Libby Guthrie with Keller Williams Realty in Northern California. I’m going to talk today about buying a home during the holidays, and I’m going to give you a few suggestions about buying a home during the holidays.

A lot of times buyers will come to me and say, Libby, is that a good idea to even look at homes during the holidays or should I wait till after the first of the year?

Well, here are a few suggestions. If you are looking to buy a home during the holidays. Work with your real estate agent and your lender, and make sure that they’re competent and communicate with you during that time. Make sure your lender has you preapproved so that you’re ready to go and you have a preapproval letter ready to give to the seller when your agent presents the offer.

If your agent or lender is going to be out of town, talk to them about that and see if they have a colleague or team member that will be covering for them while they’re out of town so that you can contact them in case they’re not available. And, um, make sure you understand. That there may be some limited time frames for you to look at homes during the holidays.

And so you want to sit down with your Realtor and set out the times and dates that you want to look at homes during the holidays so that. she or he can set up the showing times with the sellers if the home is occupied. So it’s convenient for the sellers and it’s not a last-minute thing. So just keep that in mind.

And sometimes sellers, you know, want to limit the times and dates of the showings such as, like evening showings or maybe like for example, Christmas Eve showings or Christmas day showings. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to be impeding on their, their time if there is an occupied home. That one of the good things about buying during the holidays, especially if you’re looking at a foreclosed home or a bank-owned home, sometimes the banks want to make sure that that inventory or that home is off their books by the end of the year. And that gives you an advantage that they may be a little bit flexible on the price or giving some closing costs credit.

Same thing with brand new builders. They like to get there. There inventory off the books sometimes too by the end of the year, and they may be a little bit flexible, giving out bonuses or closing cost credits or something so that you can close by the end of the year and they will be really happy with that. And they’ll be flexible on their, their pricing, possibly.

So if you’re thinking about maybe waiting until after the first of the year, there may be a few other homes on the market during that time, but there are some still advantages of looking at homes during the holidays.

And if you’re serious about looking at homes during the holidays. Please feel free to give me a call. I’m located in Northern California. Or if you’re just thinking about buying in general, and if you’re not in Northern California, I do have connections all over the United States with some great agents I can hook you up with.

So give me a call. (925) 628-2436 and happy shopping.

End Transcript

Do you have questions about buying a home during the holidays? Leave your question in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them, or call me at 925-628-2436 and I’ll be glad to help!