Are the Holidays A Good Time to Buy A Property?

With the holidays upon us, is it a good time to buy properties? In this short episode, we talk about a few benefits, risks and considerations about buying right now.  --- Transcript   Michael: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of The Real Estate Investor. My name is Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co hosts   Emil: Emil Shour   Tom: Tom Schneider   Pierre: Pierre Carrillo   Michael: And today we're gonna be tackling whether or not the holidays can present a good or bad time to buy real estate. So let's jump into it.   Michael: So guys, we just passed Thanksgiving today reporting this the first of December about to approach the full fledge holiday season. is now a good time to buy. yea or nay everything in between. Emil, what are your thoughts?   Emil: Hell, yeah. Right. now's a good time to buy. People or your competition, ie other buyers, sleeping, getting ready for the holidays. I think just overall you have less competition during this time of year. I think it's been proven through stats most you know you get the best deals December January timeframe typically. So I think if you're in a position to buy right now is a great time I am active. I mean, I think you should always be active but I think December January can be a great time to snag property.   Michael: Right on. Tom?   Tom: Tryptophane. Is that what's in turkey? and red wine?   Michael: Yeah!   Tom: Sluggish. Yeah, tastes like opportunity. But what I do is I get tryptophane free turkey and then I just hit the market. Getting the jump on everybody else. Yeah, get the jump on everyone. I would say it's, it is as good a day as any day to do buying. So you know, stick to your process, building your buy box analyzing properties. And I would try not to have too big of gotta buy now glasses or don't gotta buy now glasses. Just let the market speak. Let your work, speak and finding property. So I guess not a very specific answer. But it would be my honest answer is continue to your work and analyzing properties.   Michael: Always let your spirit guide?   Tom: Yeah, let you're conscious… you can do it.   Pierre: For a little bit of balance here, what would be some of the risks about going into the market now finding a tenant in January? Is that something that we should be considering?   Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I think finding a tenant is definitely tougher in the winter, in the vast majority of markets. And I would say talk to a property manager about what the stuffs look like, at this point in this time of the year, because they're going to have a better idea than anybody else. Because let's be real, there are leases that are expiring around this time of the year. There's only 12 months in a year. So there's always new lease expiring. So whether or not people are looking to move is a whole nother issue. But the opportunity, I think is absolutely there. But it's definitely market specific.   Tom: Great point, Pierre. Two things that I would make on that point, is related to a lease, if you do end up buying and then getting a lease, I would recommend trying to make it like an 18 month lease so that the end of the lease is hitting an a more desirable time period of when people are moving in and out not to have a 12 month lease. So it just hits directly back into the winter, which is not ideal. The other aspect of buying in the winter is that you're buying in an area that deals with a lot of snow, perhaps you're buying in Pittsburgh, it transactions can be slow, just because doing inspections can sometimes not be practical, because the inspector can't get to the roof to inspect stuff. So there is some additional challenges that is presented during the winter. But don't let that get in your way of avoiding tryptophane and doing the hard work. So great point here.   Pierre: And also more specific to this time in history, or you know, this specific moment that we are going through a new president coming in, a little bit of economic uncertainty, what