As I have mentioned in previous posts, my wife and I have been house hunting. One of my medium term goals is to upgrade our house, and if you’ve been keeping an eye on the news, you would have noticed that this is an interesting time in the Canadian real estate market.
Not only is there talk of a real estate bubble bursting, but now the Competition Bureau has successfully challenged the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) practices of forcing consumers to opt for an entire slate of services in order to list their property on the MLS.
This settlement could save consumers thousands of dollars when selling their homes, as a home seller can now pay a nominal fee to have their house listed on the MLS without having to use the full services of their real estate broker.
So with all of this to think about, we’ve already decided on a floor plan for a house that we want to build. We are currently in the process of aggressively paying down our mortgage, which is prudent in this low interest rate environment.
House Hunting: When to buy?
What we need to decide now is what the best time will be to start building a house and when to put our existing house up for sale.
This particular builder will take between 4-5 months to complete the house. Given the fact that there are currently 120 houses for sale in the price range of our house, I’m thinking we will have to put our house on the market as soon as we start the building process.
We will also be using our existing home equity as our down payment for the new house, so we will need to figure out how that process works.
The home builder will require deposits at 3 different stages of construction (initial, framing, and completion). We will be meeting with our mortgage representative soon to determine what our time line will look like to get started.
Related: My Biggest Home Buying Regret
This will be an exciting time for our family, and I plan to keep you posted on the progression of our new housing adventure.
Are any of you actively house hunting right now?
