r/RealEstateCanada

Hi, how long does it take for a realtor to draft an offer? I've been reading things online that say it takes 30 minutes. Is this true? My realtor supposedly started drafting it yesterday but I haven't heard back since. I don't want to lose out on an opportunity if this isn't the norm. Last word I heard from them was that there is no rush.

Thanks

I received an inheritance of about $170,000 in early 2024 and at that time, there were many indicators that housing prices would continue to go up. I wasn't really interested in buying a home regardless as I could continue living with my parents but one of my friends told me that now would be a good time to get a place as prices were expected to keep going up.

I ended up buying a pre-sale condo for $520,000 with 10% down in Langley, British Columbia. Now obviously shortly after, a bunch of First Home buyer tax benefits arose and about a year later real estate prices dropped significantly.

It's now caused me to be angry and blame it on my friend as like I said, if he had not told me to get a place or told me that prices would keep going up, I likely wouldn't have even bought the pre-sale as I live with my parents anyways and could. have just used the down payment on another car or vacations.

Now all I think about is all the money that I could have saved as I believe my units value dropped to low 400's now. (Again, I am NOT an investor but I wish I could have known this to save myself money and get more ahead)

I have an okay job and make about $125k a year but am not rich by any means and definitely could have used the extra cash for personal use

I just feel like I'm being unfairly left out as I was just looking for a place to live in (not invest) and definitely could have used that money and based on the news, it sounds like house prices will continue to drop for at least the net 10-20 years (Which I am happy in terms of making it affordable for other Canadians as we all have been overpaying for a long time, I just feel like I got screwed over)

Because of this, it has lead me to be more wasteful of money as I used the logic of "I could have saved $100k if I waited so I am going to spend close to that amount on a new car and eating out more and vacationing" which I know is really bad

I am going on vacation May 27 to June 2 and I don’t feel 100% comfortable allowing showings during this time only because sometimes I find that the agents don’t necessarily lock my doors properly and I just want to have that piece of mind that no one is coming into my home. After showing, I like to come home and just make sure that everything is where it’s at because I do still have certain things out as a part of the staging that are somewhat valuable to me so I would just like to have that piece of mind of knowing as soon as somebody goes into my house and I go back home I’m 100% checking my house which I think is fair.

I expressed this to my agent and she told me would be losing on exposure of the house etc etc, and then told her that I was not comfortable again, and then she comes back and says that She will ask her office to block out the dates. About an hour or so she comes back and states that they’re not able to block out showings for essentially seven days and that they would have to suspend the listing until we’re ready to show the property again

I just wanna know how accurate that is… are we for sure not able to just block the listing for seven days and then be available again?

Because I’ve had instances where I was not able to show my house because I forgot to stage it and people requested to see it and my agent just messaged them and asked them to rebook and there was no issue with that so I don’t see what the problem is now

What makes the most sense financially?

Entering the market with something you can currently afford (starter home)?

Or continuing to rent, save, invest the difference until we can afford our forever home.

Context:
My spouse and I make $160k combined. We have $130k saved for a downpayment.

I don’t feel comfortable going over a 480k mortgage, meaning what we can afford right now is around a 600k home.

The homes I’m looking at that I want sit around 900k.

With our savings rate + investment return, I think we should be able to afford 900k in around 8 years assuming a salary increase.

The way I see it, is wait 4/5 years, if we are on track to buy our 900k home wait out until we can, if not, then we’ll be in a very comfortable position to snag a home very comfortbally for $600k - $800k.

Thoughts?

Side note: Wish homes weren’t this expensive :(.

Hey everyone,

I'm currently hunting for a 2/2 2/1 or large 1 bedroom condo in the Downtown core. Budget is capped at 800k but willing to go around $830k- $850k. My plan is to live in it for years, then possibly keep it long-term as a rental asset.

At this price point, I'm running into a massive bottleneck and have to pick my poison. I've narrowed it down to two completely different options, I'm seeing a lot of examples in the market:

Option 1: The Premium Build. Concrete building under 12 years old, reputable premium developer, integrated central A/C, and a fantastic, quiet residential pocket of downtown. The catch? It's under 770 sq. ft. and the second bedroom is small (more like a nursery/office).

Option 2: The Bigger, Older Unit. An older mid-2000s tower (hitting that 20-year wall). It's bigger (800+ sq. ft.), has a "real" second bedroom + a flex space. The catch? No A/C (baseboard heat), lower build quality, and higher tenant density in the building. Building seems more run down.

I'm really struggling on what to sacrifice. From a capital preservation and future rental perspective, is it better to buy the superior developer asset with central A/C and accept the small layout? Or will the missing A/C and aging infrastructure of Option 2 hurt me more on resale/maintenance down the road?
Would love some perspective from local owners or investors who know the downtown micro-markets, Thanks!

Like the title says my partner and I are planning to buy a home hopefully early next year, at our savings rate we should be at about 100k we want to build a home. We have not gotten bank pre approval yet but using the online calculator I see we will be approved at about 500k. I have been sending him homes in the 3-400 k ranges but he looks either uninterested or disappointed. Honestly I don’t even mind getting a home form 200k it would mean less mortgage debt to worry about.

I know the type of house he wants to buy and it would put us over my comfort zone which I have told him before and he just says “let’s see what we can afford when it’s time to buy the house” unless he has an extra 100k lying around I don’t think we can afford more than 400k comfortably.

I’m more risk averse for sure, we make 140k combined 24 and 29 so still very young. How to handle this situation?

Hi,

There's a condo I was considering buying and I'm trying to figure out if I'm making a monumental mistake that will leave me destitute, I would love some advice.

The condo is 390k. I make 76k per year, but my take home each month is only a little over 4k. I would be comfortable putting down 85k for a down payment, and my parents have kindly offered to lend me 50k at a very low interest rate with no payments starting for 2 or 3 years (until my salary increases). I have no car and no other debt. Morgage plus strata fees alone would cost me just over 1800/month. This seems like a large portion of my take-home. However I also live in a high cost-of-living city (Victoria) where rent for a 1 bedroom is about 1600-2000 as well. I considered buying a two bedroom and renting out the other room, but at my age I'm pretty over having roommates, and I don't know I want to be in a situation where I need a roommate to be able to pay my morgage.

There are some okay-ish condos for less (360k), but I'd be sacrificing location, in-suite laundry, and a huge patio. I also worry the cheaper condos may not appreciate as well.

Is buying this condo a reasonable decision for someone who is sick of renting, or am I being dumb for even considering it? Thanks in advance!

My Partner and I plan to divide the costs of buying a house fairly even based in our incomes. Both of us want to keep our finances separate for different reasons. I am aware we are to set money aside for upkeep. Im more focused on bills.

1. I will be handling the biweekly mortgage payments

- $1100 approximately

- $200 lump sump

2. She will be handling all other expenses monthly

$45 Life insurance

$400 property tax

$400 car and house insurance

$150 hydro

$50 water

$100 gas

Am I forgetting anything??

Cellphones, internet, gas for car, pet food etc not included.

Lets not focus on details on why we have agreed to keep our finances separate.

I have come across a couple realtors who offer cashback here on Reddit and redflag deals but unsure how good they are

It seems that the Real estate boards in Canada have spent decades arguing that MLS listing data is their intellectual property — created and maintained by their members. They’ve used that argument to lock it down, charge for access, and build a moat around the profession.

CREA (the Canadian Real Estate Association) controls the MLS trademark and has successfully lobbied to keep sold prices and detailed listing data behind board membership walls. In the US, data is far more accessible — sites like Zillow and Redfin have rich public data. Canada deliberately chose a different path.

The actual transaction — the sale price, the date, the address — gets registered at the Ontario land registry (Teranet) which is technically public record. But it’s locked behind GeoWarehouse’s $4k/year paywall. So the data exists in public records, it’s just been commercialized by a private company that won the contract to digitize it.

Compare to other countries:

UK — sold prices are fully public, searchable free on Land Registry

Australia — varies by state but largely public

Sweden — completely public

US - data is far more accessible — sites like Zillow and Redfin have rich public data.

Canada — one of the most locked-down in the developed world

Do you have a pool in your backyard? Do you regret buying a house with a pool or is it enjoyable?

I'd like to hear opinions. Understanding 8 out of 12 months you dont get to use it, but realistically how many of us even go outside when its frigid or use our backyards?!

Anyway...I've always dreamed of owning a home with a pool....just want to hear what your opinions are on it?

Actually how many months do you get use out of it? And how hard is maintenance?

hey Everyone,

More than happy to invite any one in Vancouver to test our site: Bluenest.ai

Feedback is all I ask for.

This is completely free.

Promo code: Bluenest500

Disclaimer: this is ONLY for Condos in the Greater Vancouver area.

Cheers.

Selling a townhouse in KWC area that's been listed now for almost 3 weeks. We've had a few showings, and at our realtor's recommendation we did an open house last Sunday (yes, on the long weekend. We questioned whether it was a good idea and they said it was fine).

Well, we had ONE singular visitor during the open house.

Our realtor wants to schedule another open house for this weekend, which we're fine with. They say that Sunday is the better day, however when I'm looking at other townhouses listed in KWC, the majority are doing open houses on both Saturday AND Sunday. So the question is - is both days overkill? If so, is Sunday generally preferable over Saturday? I thought I trusted my realtor but after the abysmal open house last weekend, I'm having some doubts.

Posted in another sub, but figured id cross post here:

so me and my husband are literally so excited because we just bought our first like cute little semi-detached house in Leslieville!! It was $1.4 million which is crazy but we love it. But we just got the bill from the lawyer person and I am questioning what they sent us

When we talked to them at first they said it would be like $1,500 for the legal stuff which was like fine whatever. But today they sent the final paper thing and the total is somehow almost $5,000?? Like excuse me what?

I’m looking at the list and it makes zero sense. They are charging $1,100 for "title insurance" but I literally already paid the land transfer tax to the city so aren't they just charging me twice for the exact same thing?

And then there’s a $450 charge for "software fees." since when do I have to pay for your laptop subscription? It’s a digital world why am I paying for you to open a folder on a computer. And $175 for couriers when we literally do everything on Zoom? Like who is driving to my house, nobody

My husband is just like whatever let's just pay it so we don't lose the house but I feel like we are getting totally hosed by this old school law firm.

Is there like anything I can do?? Like are there any other hidden fees that are going to pop up on closing day that I should be freaked out about? Or is there like a better modern way to do this nowadays that doesn't include all these random extra charges?

Now that i have been doing some googling I am getting ads all over the place and Ownright came up quite a bit. I am leary of just ending up paying more fees to someone else/other company. Has anyone used them or any competitor of them that they would recommend/be able to share their experiences?

Any input would be appreciated !

I am seeing a lot of negativity about the real estate as investement and retirement tool. However, given the extreme fear in the market, uncertainty due to tariff, middle east war, inflation etc. the case for RE investment appears weak. To add fuel to the fire, population also seem to be on a decline leading to rent decline and buyer/investor groups thinning out. Essentially nothing seems to be working. Run any property with existing price and rents, all seem negative cash flowing. Warran Buffet said, be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy. My question: Is RE as a wealth building tool dead?

So for a bit of background context: I recently listed my remodelled home. We listed on the low end of what 3 different realtors valued our house at in hopes for a quick sale. It’s the second lowest price home in our small town and offers a lot of space, a larger than standard lot and a lot of new upgrades. It’s been listed for 17 days now and we just had a showing the past weekend where they were not interested which we weren’t phased by.

Now, since it’s a small town and people talk, I ended up bumping into a neighbour who told me a friend of hers from out of town who’s looking to move here recently reached out to a realtor about our home (and some others) and he immediately turned her away from ours. He said he has concerns with it being an older home that’s been remodelled and that he just did a showing and he’d recommend the other two options over ours. I put two and two together to know which realtor was. So my question is, should I inform my listing agent so that 1. He knows this realtor is directing potential buyers away from my listing before they even get a chance to see it, and 2. We can potentially adjust our marketing to help remove concerns of it being a remodelled home?

All of the renovations have been by hired professionals and most of the feedback we’ve gotten from other showings has been how beautiful it is and that they really love it (the only reason people have given for not putting an offer in is that it doesn’t have a garage)

Feeling quite weird about this situation and not sure if it requires me to do anything or just leave it and hope he doesn’t keep turning people away. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!