Why Buying a House in the Middle of Winter Was a Smart Move

There are advantages to buying or selling a house during any season, including winter.

My husband and I don't always get to decide when it's time to move. Throughout our marriage, we've followed our careers where they've taken us. Sometimes, we loved where we landed, and sometimes, we felt like aliens planted in a world we did not understand. We've become accustomed to buying and selling homes through it all, no matter what time of year we find ourselves moving.

Now, as we contemplate yet another move, I'm reminded of all the times we've been told that winter is a terrible time to sell or buy a house. Given how well buying in the middle of winter has worked out for us, I have to wonder who comes up with these rules.

Moving to Iowa

Moving to Northwest Iowa was my husband's idea, a chance for him to take over a senior leadership role. The first time I house hunted there, a blizzard reduced visibility to inches, and the entire town looked like a scene out of Game of Thrones. And yet, I was excited. We'd sold our last house to afford graduate school, and I missed having a place to call our own.

We bought the first house we toured. Why? Because the owners had already moved, it was the middle of winter, and they were beyond accommodating. It's not as though other home buyers were streaming into a small town in Northwest Iowa that month, and frankly, the lack of competition helped us score a well-cared-for home at a bargain-basement price. The sellers were wild about the color blue, and it was everywhere (including walls and carpeting), but those were cosmetic issues we were happy to change. Did I mention the bargain-basement price?

By the following summer, as house hunters began to compare the curb appeal of one home against another, we were already settled into our house.

Here's what that experience taught us:

It's the bones that matter

Curb appeal may be overrated, particularly as it applies to flowers, trees, and bushes. We were attracted to the way the house looked from the street. The seller made a smart move by leaving photographs of what the yard looked like in springtime, but even if the snow melted to reveal a yard that was a hot mess, it was an issue we could handle. The house had good bones, and ultimately, that's what mattered.

Winter closings are faster

Before buying the house, my husband was in Iowa by himself. I stayed back with the kids until we had a house and school for them. Because there were so few home closings going on at the time, the mortgage lender finished ours with lightning speed, and we didn't have to live in different states for long.

Read more: How to Buy a House

Moving to Michigan

I believe the snow was two feet deep when we moved to Michigan. Again, the sellers had already moved and were anxious to unload their old house. It had been on the market for months with no takers, and it didn't look like spring was coming to central Michigan anytime soon. Here we appear from out of state, eager to get into a home and open to making a deal.

Having just retired, the previous owners were concerned about low interest rates and what those low rates would mean to their retirement savings. To put it in perspective, mortgage rates at the time were about 7.5%. FDIC-insured investments like certificates of deposit (CDs) paid around 3% interest. The sellers knew that if we took a traditional mortgage on the property, we would pay 7.5% interest, the kind of return they hoped to collect.

So, we struck a deal. Rather than borrow money from a bank, the previous owners financed the home. Instead of making monthly payments to a traditional lender, we made monthly payments to the previous homeowners at the same interest rate we would have paid a bank. It was more than double the rate the owners would have earned on a federally insured investment product, and since we didn't have to pay closing costs, we saved money upfront. By the time we refinanced into a traditional mortgage a few years later, the property had increased enough in value to make the home appraisal easy.

Here's what the experience taught us:

The winter market is less frenzied

This was a great house. It had five bedrooms, three baths, and sat on one of the only lakes in the county. If it had been on the market during warm-weather months, I have no doubt foot traffic through the house would have been intense. So few people toured in the dead of winter that we were able to strike up a conversation with the owners, which led to a deal that benefited us both.

Agents are less busy

Given the wrangling that went into making a deal with the previous owners, I'm still a bit surprised by how easy the entire process ended up being. We had a real estate agent who acted as though we were her only clients. In addition to helping us understand more about how an owner-finance deal works, she went out of her way to introduce us to the area. I can't imagine how she could have offered the same level of service during busier months.

The next time you read an article highlighting the reasons buying or selling a home in wintertime is a terrible idea, I hope you'll take it with a grain of salt.