Buying isn’t about being early. It’s about being ready.

Most people don’t actually want “the right time.”

They want the feeling that they won’t regret the decision.

So they look for signals: rates, headlines, inventory charts, the season, what their neighbor thinks is about to happen. Let’s be clear: markets matter. Pricing matters. Financing matters. All of it matters.

But there’s a category mistake buried in the way people talk about timing:

Market timing is not the same thing as decision timing.

Market timing is external. It’s the environment.
Decision timing is internal. It’s readiness.

And in real estate, readiness beats prediction far more often than people want to admit.

The myth of “being early”

When someone says, “I don’t want to buy at the top,” what they often mean is: “I don’t want to feel stupid later.”

Fair. Real estate is expensive. It’s not a hobby.

But trying to be early usually turns into one of two outcomes:

1. You wait for certainty that never arrives.
   The market doesn’t ring a bell. You don’t get a push notification when it’s safe.
2. You act on noise instead of criteria.
   One hopeful headline, one scary headline, one friend’s story… and suddenly you’re making a major decision on a mood.

Being early is a status you can only confirm in hindsight.

Readiness is something you can assess right now.

What “ready” actually means

Readiness isn’t a vibe. It isn’t optimism. It isn’t a feeling that this will all work out.

Readiness is a set of thresholds you’ve decided in advance, before pressure shows up.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

You’re ready to buy when the decision still makes sense even if the next 12 months are inconvenient.

Not catastrophic. Not worst-case. Just imperfect.

Because real life is imperfect.

If your plan only works when rates fall quickly, inventory rises soon, and prices cooperate politely, you don’t have a plan. You have a wish.

A ready decision is one you can defend without needing the market to rescue you.

The three readiness categories that matter most

1) Financial readiness

This isn’t just “Do you have a pre-approval?”

Financial readiness is knowing your comfort range, not your maximum.

A few questions I like here:

• If the payment feels 10–15% higher than expected, does the decision still hold?
• If a repair shows up in month three, is it annoying—or destabilizing?
• If the home takes longer to feel like “the one,” do you still have margin?

Ready buyers leave room for life. Rushed buyers budget like nothing will go wrong.

2) Lifestyle readiness

This is the part people skip because it’s harder to quantify.

Lifestyle readiness is being clear on what you’re actually buying:

• Space (and the work that comes with it)
• Location (and the trade-offs you accept)
• Time (commute, maintenance, travel, distance to what matters)
• Identity (what the home represents)

A second home buyer might be buying “access” (to family time, to winter sunshine, to a calmer rhythm). A move-up buyer might be buying “capacity” (more room, better schools, a different day-to-day).

Different reasons. Same point:

If you can’t name what the house does for your life, it’s hard to know if it’s worth the cost.

3) Decision readiness

This is the readiness most people confuse with market timing.

Decision readiness means:

• You know your non-negotiables
• You know your walk-away points
• You know what you’ll do if the next option is better, worse, or simply different
• You can make a clean “no” without spiraling

This is the difference between a buyer who tours homes and learns, and a buyer who tours homes and gets emotionally whipped around by every new listing.

Calm is not indecision. Calm is structure.

“Ready” doesn’t mean “in a hurry”

One of the biggest misconceptions is that readiness forces speed.

It doesn’t.

Readiness just means you’re not dependent on a perfect week.

A ready buyer can move quickly when the right home shows up because they already did the thinking. A ready buyer can also wait without panic because their criteria are clear.

The same is true for sellers. Ready sellers aren’t trying to pick the peak week. Ready sellers are aligned on: next move, timing constraints, pricing strategy, and risk tolerance if the first plan doesn’t work.

When you’re ready, you don’t need the market to be quiet in order to think clearly.

A practical “ready vs. rushed” checklist

Here’s a simple checklist I use to pressure-test readiness. It works for buyers and sellers because it’s really a decision-quality checklist.

If you’re buying, you’re ready when:

• You can describe the move in one sentence (not five competing reasons)
• You know your top 3 non-negotiables and your top 3 flex points
• Your monthly payment is inside a comfort range you’d defend even if conditions change
• You have a plan for “not perfect” (inspection issues, slower appreciation, higher costs)
• You’re not relying on a single prediction to make the numbers work

If you’re selling, you’re ready when:

• You know where you’re going next
• You’re aligned on your “yes” terms: price range, timeline, and what you’ll fix (and what you won’t)
• You’ve discussed the two most common friction points: showing disruption and negotiation fatigue
• You’ve decided your walk-away points in advance, so you don’t decide in the heat of it

Notice what’s missing:

There’s no section titled “Wait for the perfect headline.”

Because headlines don’t carry your mortgage. You do.

The quiet truth: most regret comes from rushing, not from timing

The “wrong time” fear gets all the attention.

But in my experience, the more costly mistakes usually come from rushed criteria:

• Buying a home that doesn’t fit because you wanted to “beat” the market
• Stretching the budget because you didn’t want to lose
• Selling without a clear next step because the market felt exciting

Markets can be loud. That part is normal.

The question is whether your decision process becomes loud with it.

What this means for a rational decision-maker

If you’re thinking about buying (or selling), don’t start with:
“Is this the perfect week?”

Start with:
“What would need to be true for this to be a good decision even if the market stays imperfect for a while?”

When your criteria are clear, timing becomes less dramatic.

And when timing becomes less dramatic, your decisions get better.