Sometimes you don't have a choice. Your lease is ending in six weeks. You're relocating to the Valley with a couple of dogs and can't find a rental that'll take them. In those situations, you might need to buy quickly -- and that's OK, we can work with that.

But some buyers find themselves with flexibility in when they will buy their home.

If you're a buyer in this situation, that's a great situation, and you should make the most of it.

Time lets you learn the market and start to understand what prices are reasonable for which homes.  You'll start to notice which types of listings (based on location, condition, price, marketing) sit around and don't sell and which ones move fast. 

Time also often lets you narrow in on location. Maybe you start out thinking you are open to buying anywhere in Rockingham County... but after we look at houses in a few different parts of the county, you notice you keep gravitating back toward the same couple of neighborhoods. That's helpful to know, and we wouldn't necessarily have picked up on that if you had to buy a house within two weeks.

Finally, time lets you get clearer (with yourself) about what you want in a house.  Sometimes that will match what we initially discussed when you started thinking about a home purchase... and sometimes it will have shifted during the home search.  

So, if you have the luxury of time -- let's use it. Let's start looking sooner rather than later, but if we walk through a house that's "fine" -- not great, just fine -- perhaps we hold off on making an offer, and wait to see what else might come on the market next.