Read your lease terms and plan ahead
If you are renting now and planning to buy, be sure to understand what, if any, flexibility your lease allows.
Why? It’s currently a strong seller’s market in Boston. It is typical for a seller to receive numerous offers, and you don’t want lose out due to your lease end date if you can avoid it.
Understand your lease terms and any penalties. Budget and plan for how you’ll extend or break a lease in order to give a seller the moving timeline they need. Your seller may be trying to buy and working with their own seller’s moving restrictions.
Optimize your leasing timeline
If you can negotiate flexibility into your lease up front, do so. You may be able to arrange an earlier lease termination with a landlord who’s eager to change their rental cycle and/or increase the rent.
To work with the academic schedule
Much of the Boston real estate market, especially rentals, moves on the academic schedule. If you need move by the end of August, plan to have your new purchase under contract at least six to eight weeks in advance—by end of June. For success, have a strategy in place and be actively looking by mid-April.
To get the best value
By October through December, most buyers and sellers who needed to have moved by a certain time will have done so for the year. The sellers coming to market in late fall will have a smaller pool of buyers than if it were spring. You might then have a better opportunity to dictate the terms of an offer.
But while the buyer competition may not be quite as fierce, the pickings of listings will be noticeably slimmer.
To explore the most listings
Generally, aim to be looking between March and June.
Need to move by a certain time?
Talk with your agent about how best to plan out your goals, given seasonal buyer competition in the market.
