Should You Wait to Buy or Sell in Greater Lowell?

By Chris Doherty

Christian Doherty lists and sells more homes than any other agent in the Greater Lowell, Massachusetts market with over 300 homes sold in the past 12 months. Chris is ranked in the top 1% of all agents in the United States.

It is one of the most common questions I hear from homeowners across Greater Lowell and southern New Hampshire, and with interest rates in the headlines, I understand why. People want to know whether they should wait, whether a better moment is coming, or whether now is simply the wrong time to buy or sell.

The honest answer is that trying to time the market is one of the least reliable ways to make this decision, and once you see why, the entire conversation changes.

The top is only visible later. Most people share the same unspoken goal: sell at the very top of the market, then buy the next home at the bottom. The first half alone is nearly impossible, because the peak only becomes clear in hindsight. Even seasoned financial professionals cannot reliably call it, which makes it a difficult thing to build a life around.

Selling high means buying high. Suppose you did sell your Lowell colonial or Chelmsford cape at the exact top. The problem almost no one thinks through is that now you have to buy, in the very same market you just sold into. To truly come out ahead, you would need to sell at the peak and buy at the bottom, and those are never the same moment. Every transaction has a buyer and a seller, and one side’s advantage is the other side’s cost. One way or another, it tends to even out.

This market is tight everywhere. Our local market shows this clearly. In Lowell, homes have recently been selling for about 102% of list price in under a month, and the market still rates as very competitive. Southern New Hampshire has been similarly tight, with sellers holding firm. A market like this does not hand you a clean top to sell into and a soft bottom to buy from. It gives you the same conditions on both ends of your move.

Waiting has real costs. Imagine you sold at the top and decided to wait for the bottom before buying. Where do you live in the meantime? Moving in with family is a perfectly fine choice if it is the one you want, but too often it is a reluctant one, made in service of a moment that may never arrive. You would also need to identify the bottom, and nobody can say whether that is six months away, a year, or five. While you wait, life keeps moving, and the child who was a toddler when you sold could be well into grade school before that “perfect” moment appears.

Let your life set the timing. After guiding families on both sides of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire line through this exact question, my counsel is almost always the same: look at your life, not the market. Did your family grow, and the house no longer has room? Are the kids grown, and the place feels too big to heat through another New England winter? Did a new job change your commute, perhaps across the state line? Did grandchildren arrive, and you want to be closer? These are the reasons that matter, because you will still care about them years from now, long after you have forgotten what rates were in any given month.

The state line is a real trade. For many of my clients, the life question and the state-line question turn out to be the same. A Lowell family weighing a move to Nashua is usually not chasing the bottom of the market; they are weighing a genuine trade-off. New Hampshire has no income tax on wages and no general sales tax, which can mean meaningful savings. If you keep working in Massachusetts, however, the Commonwealth still taxes those wages, and New Hampshire’s property taxes generally run higher. Massachusetts, for its part, keeps you closer to the commuter rail and the amenities of Greater Boston. Neither side is simply better. The right answer depends on your income, your commute, and the life you are building.

Rates are a matter of perspective. Rates are hovering around 7%, which is still below the long-term average. Anyone who bought a home in the 1970s or 1980s would have considered that rate a gift. My honest advice is not to let the rate or the fine print of the transaction drive your decision. The people who make the best moves here, whether they stay in the Valley or cross the border, are almost never the ones who timed the market perfectly. They are the ones who moved when their life called for it, and let the details follow.

Let’s talk through your timing. If you are weighing whether now is the right time for you, on either side of the line, I would welcome the conversation. We can look at the real numbers together and compare what a move within Massachusetts or into New Hampshire would mean for you. Call or text me at (978) 746-0124, email me at chris@dohertyproperties.com, or visit dohertyproperties.com. I look forward to talking with you.