Get a Great Deal by Buying During a Down Time

Here's a quick, simple, and effective money saving tip left on my post titled How to Get a Really, Really, Really Good Deal on a Home:

Here's another idea. Wait until right before Christmas. Check the listings. Anyone selling around then is beyond desperate.

This is a GREAT idea! It's about buying a house in this case, but it can be used on any sort of purchase.

For instance, I've heard that car dealerships do almost no business between Thanksgiving and Christmas because everyone else is out shopping for Christmas gifts, not cars. In addition, dealerships often have their fiscal year at the end of the calendar year, so they are really, really desperate for sales towards the end of December -- which makes it a PERFECT time to be a buyer and get a great deal. :-)

Comments

[Traciatim]

In areas where there is snow cover on the property I would recommend against this for home purchasing. What happens if there are roof problems (like the shingles are 25-30 years old) and they are covered by snow so you don't know until spring. What happens if there is a large pile of old dock floats on the hill to your neighbours lawn which can't be moved by anything but a crane because the old owner wanted them for something that will never get done? Now you have to use the neighbours yard to get a crane in to remove them and pay for redoing his lawn where it gets damaged.

I was shopping in the January/February time frame this year and had quite a heck of a purchase for my first home. Our original closing date was in the middle of march, we gave our notice to leave our apartment. During our final walk-through we found that the power had been cut just a few days before and since it was march the temperature swing was enough to freeze the pipes and then have them thaw so water destroyed half the house. If we hadn't of done our walk-through (which we almost did cancel) we would have ended up in a huge legal battle.

As it turns out the vendor replaced all the flooring that was damaged, and gutted the 70's style basement for us leaving just studs for us to re-finish. We paid a little extra to do the floors in the three bedrooms that were not damaged so now we have hardwood from end to end save the bathroom and kitchen. Our story ended up ok, but it could have been far far worse.

Next time, I'll wait until no snow, or shop before the snow sets in in the fall.

[Anitra]

Traciatim: We started house-shopping in early March, when there was still a lot of snow on the ground. It actually made us _more_ aware of problems with several of the houses we looked at (most were bank-owned, and hadn't been maintained properly).

I don't know if the car-dealership advice would help as much if you're shopping for a used car. I bought mine in early December, and didn't get a very good price on it. That might have been my own fault, though.

[hejustlaughs]

At first I was confused by your title "Great a Great Deal by Buying During a Down Time" so I clicked on it from my RSS reader.

Then I realized something. Confusing post titles might actually draw more people to your post. Normally I wouldn't care about issues related to houses as I'm still in college and not in the market for a house anytime soon.