When you’re buying a home for sale in Scottsdale, you need to work with a real estate agent who’s extremely familiar with the market – and with how the seasons affect buying and selling in this beautiful city. Summer is different from spring for house-hunters, so here’s what you need to know.
Summer Home-Buying Tips in Scottsdale
This is a great time of year to buy a home in Scottsdale – you can explore each neighborhood by driving through at various times of day to see how active the residents are, check out the outdoor living space in your favorite houses and visualize your own barbecue grill on each patio, and browse through more listings than you can during winter.
Watch for Price Drops
Summer is a busy home-buying season, and the good news is that statistically, home prices drop a bit between May and October. You can also start looking at homes that have been listed since early spring but haven’t sold; in many cases, those homes see the most dramatic price-drops. While sometimes there are things wrong with houses sitting on the market for that long, in many cases they’re the result of a buyer backing out of a deal for a legitimate reason (such as not being able to obtain financing) or they were simply edged out by newer listings when the busy season began.
Don’t Wait Too Long
At the end of summer, inventory starts to drop off. Lots of people are taking that last summer vacation or decide that they don’t want to move during the school year, so if you’re committed to a summer move, start looking now.
Seller’s Market? Don’t Negotiate Too Much
Your real estate agent can tell you whether you’re in a seller’s market or a buyer’s market. The term seller’s market means there are more buyers than there are homes available, while buyer’s market means there are more homes available than there are buyers. Each market works in favor of its namesake – when there are more buyers than homes available, sellers can anticipate bidding wars and don’t have to make many concessions to buyers. When there are more homes for sale than there are buyers, sellers are more willing to do what it takes to win a buyer’s offer.
If you’re in a seller’s market and you really, really want a particular home, you may not have much room to ask the seller to make concessions or knock a few thousand dollars off the purchase price; that’s because there could be another buyer right behind you who won’t ask for those things. Don’t worry about it too much, though – that’s where your real estate agent will step in and give you the guidance you need.
