The Cost of Waiting to Purchase In The Massachusetts Real Estate Market

Most conversations about timing the housing market are about interest rates. Those get all the attention because a rate is a number you can watch move every day.

There is a second kind of timing nobody talks about, and for a lot of buyers it matters more.

It is not what month you close. It is what month you are competing.

What the year looked like

We pulled every single family sale in Arlington, Belmont, Waltham and Watertown over the trailing twelve months. Then we sorted them by the month the offer was accepted rather than the month the sale closed, because the offer is when the competing actually happens.

Source: MLS PIN. 577 single family sales, trailing 365 days, four towns, grouped by the month the offer was accepted.

In December, fewer than three in ten homes sold above asking and buyers had over a month to make up their minds. By March, seven in ten sold above asking and the median buyer had six days.

The house does not change between December and March. The number of people standing in the kitchen does.

Not every town behaves the same

This is where it gets useful, because the seasonal swing is not uniform.

What this does not mean

It does not mean you should sit out the spring and wait for December.

There is a reason winter is cheaper, and it is inventory. Far fewer homes come to market between November and February. A better price on a smaller selection is not automatically a better outcome, particularly if nothing available in January is a house you want to live in for a decade.

Mortgage rates also move independently of the calendar, and they moved against buyers this year. Mike covers that side in more depth in the companion piece.

What the data does support is narrower and more practical. If you are going to buy in the next year anyway, and your timing is genuinely flexible, the fall and winter market hands you two things the spring market will not: a few more dollars of negotiating room, and considerably more time to think.

The part that matters most

Look at the decision column one more time. Seven days in the spring.

Seven days is enough time if you have already seen thirty houses, already know what your number is, already have a lender who has looked at your file, and already watched a few properties you liked sell so you know what they went for.

Seven days is not close to enough time if you started last weekend.

That is the argument for starting early, and it has nothing to do with buying early. Preparation and purchase are two separate decisions, and the buyers who do well are the ones who separate them.