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The things that actually decide whether a purchase goes well — most of them settled long before you see a house you like.
The down payment is the number everyone saves toward, and it is not the number that decides whether you can close. Land transfer tax, legal fees, title insurance, a home inspection, and the sales tax on your mortgage insurance all land in the same week — and none of them can be added to the mortgage.
In Toronto this matters more than anywhere else in the country, because the city charges its own land transfer tax on top of the provincial one. On a million-dollar purchase that is roughly $33,000 in tax alone, against about $16,500 for the identical home in Mississauga. Work out yours before you set a budget, not after.
The minimum down payment also isn't a flat 5%. It is 5% on the first $500,000 and 10% on the portion above that, so an $800,000 home needs $55,000 rather than $40,000. That $15,000 gap has caught out more first-time buyers than any other rule.
A pre-approval is free, takes a day or two, and holds a rate for you for 90 to 120 days. Without one you are guessing at your own budget, and in a competitive segment you cannot make a clean offer at all.
Understand the difference between a pre-qualification — a lender's rough estimate from figures you told them — and a real pre-approval, where they have verified your income and pulled your credit. Only the second one means anything when you are competing.
Expect the approved amount to be lower than an online calculator suggests. Lenders qualify you at the greater of 5.25% or your rate plus two percentage points, not the rate you will actually pay. Our affordability calculator applies that test, which is why its answer is more conservative than most.
Kitchens, bathrooms, flooring and paint are all buyable later. A location, a lot, a floor plan, ceiling height, which way the back garden faces and what is on the other side of the fence are not.
Buyers routinely reject a structurally excellent home over a dated kitchen, then overpay for a renovated one on a worse street. The renovation is a cheque; the street is permanent. When you are shortlisting, force yourself to score the things you cannot change first.
The exception is anything structural, and that is exactly what an inspection is for — foundations, roof, electrical, plumbing, and whether the basement has ever been wet.
Two things are worth checking on every listing before you book a viewing:
Sold prices, original asking prices and days on market are released by my board only to registered clients. Registering is free and takes a minute.
In a competitive offer, the pressure to waive financing and inspection conditions is real. Before you do, be clear about what each one is protecting you from.
A financing condition protects you if the lender appraises the home for less than you agreed to pay. Waiving it means you are on the hook for the difference in cash — a pre-approval is not the same as an approval on a specific property.
An inspection condition protects you from what you cannot see in a twenty-minute showing. A pre-listing inspection provided by the seller is useful, but it was commissioned by the other side.
There are ways to compete without going unconditional — a pre-offer inspection, a larger deposit, a closing date that suits the seller. Waiving a condition should be a decision you make with the numbers in front of you, not one you are talked into on a deadline.
Set the maximum you will pay while you are calm, at a kitchen table, with the affordability numbers open. Then hold it. Almost every story of regret in this business starts with someone going $40,000 past a limit they set two days earlier because they had already imagined living there.
It helps to convert the number into a monthly payment. An extra $50,000 on the price is not an abstraction — it is a specific amount per month for the next twenty-five years, and the payment calculator will tell you exactly what it is.
Losing a house is survivable. Being stretched for a decade is a much harder thing to undo.
Find a real estate lawyer before you are in an accepted offer, not after. They review the agreement, search title, arrange title insurance, handle the statement of adjustments and register the transfer — and a good one will catch things in a status certificate or a survey that nobody else will.
Ask for a quote that includes disbursements rather than just the fee. And if you are buying a condo, make sure they are reviewing the status certificate specifically — reserve fund health and any special assessment on the horizon are exactly the sort of thing that should change your mind before closing rather than after.
Buying, selling, or just trying to work out whether the timing makes sense — a short call costs you nothing and usually makes the decision a lot clearer.
