Thu, October 08, 2009
What’s The Best Day of the Year For House-Buying?
Yesterday’s second hour of the radio program “On Point” featured the author of “Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That, and Go There.”
Most people know that stores are busiest on Saturdays because everyone is out shopping. Mark Di Vincenzo’s book takes that logic into other realms. There are times of the year when certain items tend to be on sale, times of the year when it’s best to tell a house, etc.
DiVincenzo interviewed experts in dozens of fields and discusses his book with Tom Ashbrook. For example – if you order fish at a restaurant on a Monday, it probably isn’t fresh, because there are no fish deliveries on Sunday. The program offers pointers from the book on how to save time and money by timing your purchases, vacations, etc. appropriately.
So what’s the best day for house-buying? According to several realtors that DiVincenzo interviewed, the best day of the year for making a lowball offer on a house is – Christmas Day. Apparently, their logic is that if someone has a house on the market at that time of year, they’re eager for a sale and more likely to be in a good mood on Christmas. He suggests that at other times of the year, it’s best to make an offer early in the month. Usually, at the beginning of the month the seller has had to make another mortgage payment on a house he doesn’t want anymore.
