If you’re ready to buy your first home or move up to your forever home, the chilly temps could work to your advantage.

While holiday celebrations and colder weather may keep less serious house shoppers on the couch, the calendar shouldn’t dictate your home search. It’s true more houses are listed for sale in the spring and summer, but it also means more competition. It’s true the Denver market seems hot year-round, but there are still a few perks to buying during the colder months. Check them out below!

Lower prices
While this may not be true in every market or with every home, houses may list at their lowest price during the winter. If a homeowner needs to sell in an off-peak market, pricing it aggressively makes sense.

Less competition
Many people won’t look for homes during the winter because they don’t want to move in bad weather or force their kids to change schools during the year. When fewer people are looking and buying, you’ll have more time to make important decisions and negotiate with motivated sellers.

Reality checks
It’s easy to look at a house in the summertime and see yourself enjoying dinner on the deck or the kids playing in the yard. Curb appeal draws buyers in, and staging makes them overlook or make excuses for things that might otherwise influence their decision. A steep slippery driveway or huge icicles hanging from gutters are winter warning signs. You might ignore the importance of proper insulation or good windows on a 70-degree day. But the draft you can feel in a house when it’s freezing is hard to cover up.

Denver winters are generally fairly mild, so it’s not as if home prices will drop drastically just because the weather is cooling down. Still, you’ll find more aggressive prices and less competition in the “off season.” Ready to start your home search? Contact Metrowest today – we’d love to discuss your options!