Beat the Texas Heat

hot earthSummer is here and if a house is vacant the air conditioner may not necessarily be on. At 5pm in Texas, we are basically walking into a pizza oven when viewing an unairconditioned home. If buyers have flexibility in their schedule, it is often best to go earlier in the day. It is cooler out which keeps spirits high and makes the process more enjoyable for all.

Showing Houses in Austin

I often say the only fun part in the home buying process is looking at homes, so when you take that away, it’s a little less joyful. Not everyone has the flexibility in their schedules to get out early. Most people work from 9-5pm at least during the week, but even if buyers can see some possibilities earlier on the weekend and keep the must-sees for during the week -it can help.

Home Viewing Tips

Inventory in Austin is low and so I have buyers constantly making concessions in terms of their criteria in order to find a good fit. Sometimes they wind up with 10 homes they would like to see, but within that list there is typically 3 homes they really want to see. Those are the homes I want to define and show first even if it is 100 degrees out or at 6pm in the evening. We save the rest of the list because more often than not, the rest are homes the buyer is talking themselves into, which we will ultimately talk ourselves out of.

We often refer to cooler heads prevailing in an emotional sense, but in Texas the term is just as applicable with the temperature outside. The more comfortable the buyer is, the more focused they will be to choose the right house.