The latest homeowner's conundrum: buy first or sell first?

How to Decide Home Buying & Selling Order

New homeowners face many problems, but hot markets are tricky for those looking to move up. Buying a home can be difficult. House hunters must save for a down payment, may face bidding wars and even forgo conditions once considered staples of a home purchase offer, like financing or an inspection. 

But those who already own a home and want to move into a bigger place or downsize can face a complicated process. They must also decide whether it's best to buy or sell first. The choice depends on the people, the house and the city, realtors say, though there are some constants that hold true for most situations.  The decision to sell their home first

Vancouver, BC – June 15, 2020.

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 4,518 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in May 2020, a decline of 45.2 per cent from May 2019.

With many markets across the country heading into 2020 with gusto, the COVID-19-pandemic has had an abrupt cooling effect upon real estate Canada-wide. Sales volume, listings, and demand are all showing obvious month-over-month dips; impacts of precautionary social distancing measures, and a national economy on pause.

Yet, not all hope is lost. There is a great deal of optimism that, should events unfold according to the predictions of the country’s public health officials, we may witness a slow crawl

Buying and selling manufactured homes

Most first-time home buyers only consider site-built single-family homes, but have you considered buying a mobile home or manufactured home? Mobile and manufactured homes, while not as popular, have one big advantage: They typically offer more space or amenities for the money.

Mobile homes, also known as “manufactured homes," are built in a factory and placed on a trailer chassis to allow them to be moved. Mobile homes are sometimes placed in a mobile home park or on leased land. In these cases, the owner rents a space or leases land, but owns the mobile home itself. Alternatively, mobile home owners can place mobile homes on land they own or are buying under contract.

Today's companies manufacture homes at

Hiring the right person to sell your home is critical to ensure that you encounter as few roadblocks as possible during the sale process and earn a good price for your house.

So you’ve taken that job offer in another city, or perhaps you’ve simply outgrown your current home. You spent time personalizing and making the home yours and chances are, you remember the day you bought your property, signed all your documents and got your keys.

Depending on the circumstances, it can be an emotional time for someone to sell their home, but the time has come to put the property on the market. So the question is… how to choose a Realtor to sell my home? Not only is it the home itself that sells the property but choosing the right listing agent to get the job

Ready to buy a home? Be prepared: With inventory tight and prices rising, this is a tricky time to be entering the market.

Your biggest challenge is that you’re probably bringing less cash to the table, which makes it harder to compete with more seasoned buyers.

What you do have, however, is flexibility—you’re not counting on selling your current place to fund the deal. That means you can play nice guy with sellers who want to stay put until they land their next place.

Here are the best moves for you to make as you begin to enter the housing market.

1. Lock Up Your Financials

Before you start shopping, clean up your credit and save for a bigger down payment so that you’ll qualify for a better mortgage rate and avoid costly fees. Step one:

You may have heard of the incentive programs that the federal government has created to try to entice first time home buyers into the real estate market, but how much do you really understand? Is this something for you?

The government of Canada has a couple of programs that are designed to get first time buyers on the property ladder. Read on to see if they are right for you.

1) The Home Buyers' Plan (HBP). This is a program that allows you to withdraw funds from your Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) to buy or build a qualifying home for yourself or for a related person with a disability. The HBP allows you to pay back the withdrawn funds within a 15-year period. So what are the rules?

• Permits two first-time buyers in the same

If you have questions about the coronavirus and how the current situation might impact your finances, you’re not alone.

We’ve all heard the words “unprecedented times” more than ever over the last month. While we deal with so much uncertainty around us, it’s important to recognize that there are still actions we can take to help protect ourselves.

With financial markets crashing and the loss of a number of jobs, Canadians are questioning their financial future. It is yet to be determined the real economic impact of the coronavirus as data is changing quickly with limited time to analyze. There are indications that joblessness will increase in the short term, which can be scary; however, the government and lenders are stepping up to aid households in

Your credit scores are an important aspect of your financial profile.

They may be used to determine some of the most important financial factors in your life, such as whether you’ll be able to lease a vehicle, qualify for a mortgage or even land that cool new job.

And considering 71 percent of Canadian families carry debt in some form (think mortgages, car loans, lines of credit, personal loans or student debt), good credit health should be a part of your current and future plans.  High, low, positive, negative – there’s more to your scores than you might think. And depending on where your numbers fall, your lending and credit options will vary. So what is a good credit score? What about a great one? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

In a

When selling a house, pricing it correctly is one of the most important steps.

If the house is priced too high, it can linger on the market for months without any chance of selling. Even worse, if the price is too low, it will certainly sell, but the seller could be leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table.

As the homeowner, you play a vital role in preparing your home for the market, determining your asking price, striking the deal, and handing over the role of ownership.

There are two methods that most people use to figure out the price of their home; a comparative market analysis (CMA), and an appraisal. A CMA is prepared by a real estate agent and can come either before or after the agent is hired. An appraisal is done by a licensed

If you spend most of the winter outside Canada, you may want to explore the opportunity to rent out your Canadian home while you’re away. 

Renting out your Canadian residence can have a number of benefits, including helping to cover the costs of your winters away. The extra income can be used to supplement or even offset the cost of your winter home or rental. Another benefit is that your home will be lived in and therefore you won’t have to find someone to inspect it daily or every other day, to meet your insurance requirements.  Finally, your home will be occupied, which will deter break-ins, and any damage due to non-use, such as your pipes freezing or bursting, and other risks.

However, renting out your home isn’t for everyone. You have to be