March through June are traditionally the busy months in home buying and selling. While there are a few more listings, there are also many more condo shoppers out seeing and buying them.  Shopping in that peak spring market you might find fewer high-quality and well-priced condos to choose from in your selected neighborhoods.  Competing offers are more common, and that puts pressure on the home shoppers.  In the dog days of summer, though, many buyers are off to Stampede or to grandma’s house, and that trend continues toward year’s end and the depths of winter, which is the best time of all for buyers.

The key factor in timing your purchase is that home listings come onto the market very evenly throughout the year.  On a graph it’s virtually a flat line.  When someone is transferred, or another life change dictates that they have to move; they move.  But buyers are more seasonal, hibernating, if you will.  Mid-winter months and August give my clients more selection and we find some more flexibility on price, than in the peak shopping months of the year.

By shopping for your condo while some others are hunkering indoors or off to Mexico for example, you could save money on your purchase—possibly even if you’re buying a brand new condo.  Of course, builders have fixed costs that make their situation less flexible than that of sellers of resale condos.  Yet builders will sometimes throw in an upgrade or an additional appliance to obtain your off-season purchase.  As for resale listings, these people will have bought years ago, and have enjoyed a dramatically rising Calgary market.  If they need to sell, they could be in a position to yield a little on price and still come out ahead.

Don’t let cold weather or deep snow stop you from looking for a condo home when the market favours the buyer.  You have long johns, and I have a four-wheel drive car.  Let’s go condo shopping.

Gerald Rotering is a condominium-specialist Realtor with Realty Executives, Chinook City, is President of his own building’s condominium corporation, and is a professional member of the Canadian Condominium Institute. Extensive further information about condominiums can be found on his web site: http://www.CondosInCalgary.com.