Weather affects your prospects of buying a house in two basic ways.
Let’s use this past week as an example.
Last weekend the weather was not too cold, a bit sunny, and certainly not unpleasant. Until late Saturday afternoon, that is. That’s when the Blizzard of ’06 hit.
Up to the moment when the flakes fell, the weather was agreeable for Buyers out and about shopping for a home. In fact, Saturday the 11th was busy as all heck. Lorraine and I were out with Buyers and were literally bumping into other Buyers and their agents in houses. So, the weather made for a good time to look for a home.
Then the snow hit. No showing houses in that 26.9″ mess. But, though they couldn’t look at houses, the snow was a wonderful bonus for Buyers. Think about all the older homeowners sitting in their houses watching the snow fall. They’re dreading the thought of having to shovel all that white stuff. Impatience to move to sunnier—and less snowy—climes grows with every 3 inches-of-snow-fall-an-HOUR. Methinks this pushes a Seller’s motivation up a coupla notches.
In fact, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. A young couple we’re working with received surprisingly good news when the Seller (an couple in their 70’s by my estimate) counteroffered a total of 5% off the list price in a round of negotiating before, during and after the snowstorm. I even commented to one of the Buyers, “The snow is your friend, today!”
Ahh, then the weather changed. The listing agent, when queried if there was any movement from the Seller on the price further (the Buyers were sitting tight with a “wait-and-see” attitude for a house they really, really loved) responded, “Well we’ve had Buyers looking at the house the last couple of days and the Sellers want to see if they get any other offers.”
Yes, the weather had improved dramatically. The temps were in the 40’s, nay, the 50’s! The snow was a-melting away. The sun was shining and even some danged birds were singing like it was spring! (Sidebar: a Cardinal was singing happily up a tree Saturday afternoon when our Buyers saw this house they loved; and the sun was shining!)
The Sellers must have been sitting there thinking, “Oh, this isn’t so bad, this weather. We can wait and get our price.”
I don’t know if the forecasts of frosty temps for this weekend changed their minds, or some lingering backache from shovelling Monday morning, but the Sellers accepted the Buyer’s offer (the Buyer had come up to the last counteroffer) yesterday, Friday morning.
Wonder what the weather will be like when we close in a few weeks?