House hunting in spring vs late fall/winter?

[Lauren W.]

I'm planning to purchase a house in the SLC metro in the near future.  I plan to offset some costs by house hacking with roommates or a basement rental.  However, the purchase is intended as a long term primary residence and doesn't necessarily need the numbers to work as an investment property.  I'm primarily looking at S Salt Lake, the cheaper parts of Sugarhouse/Salt Lake, or Murray.  I'd consider Cottonwood but their rather draconian rules on ADUs, short term rentals and non-related housemates make it less appealing.  My dilemna is that I'll be doing a lot of travel this summer/early fall and realistically won't be able to search and close on a place during that time.  I'll need to either find a place quickly and have closing done by mid May or delay searching until October-November.  In the hot market of the last couple of years, even that short wait could have made a meaninful difference in purchase price, but it does seem to have leveled off recently.    Obviously no one can predict the future, but for those who are more involved in the local real estate market than me, would you expect a significant difference between searching in spring vs late fall?  I realize it will be the off season for real estate when I return, which may limit options somewhat.  I've got my finances in order, have been watching/researching the market for the last year, and would be ready to make an offer quickly if I found the right property. Does it make sense to get pre-authorized and start searching ASAP (with plans to table the search if I haven't found a suitable property in the first few months), or just wait until the fall?