If You are Buying a Home in Calgary, Here's What You Need to Know

I wanted to give you a breakdown of the home buying process, if you are new to this blog then welcome, read on and if you have questions you can email me or shoot me a text or give me a call 403-827-7527

First: Identifying the neighbourhood that you want to be in is key.

Keep in mind that anything inside the house can be changed, the location and orientation of the property cannot. So area selection as well as orientation and the property location would be the first thing to consider.

Second: What Style of Home do you Want?

Quite often, style is determined by price point, as we have been in a bit of a down market now in Calgary for the last 5 years or so, that may not necessarily be completely accurate now. You can likely find a home for around the $350,000 to $400,000 price points, it will depend on where you want to live in the city or outside the city.

Third: Financing is also very important, you will want to have a preapproval in place before you make an offer on any home.

A preapproval basically means that the lender has approved you based on income (verified by T4s and NOAs), work history and debt load (Total Debt Service Ratios). This doesn't mean that you are fully approved as the last piece of the puzzle is the property, they need a live deal in order to complete the loop.

Fourth: As part of any offer you will be required to put up a deposit, this is different from your downpayment.

The deposit will accompany the offer (or be delivered within a couple of business days upon acceptance of the offer), depending on the price points you are looking in you should be prepared to put up $5-$20,000 as a deposit. The deposit eventually becomes part of your overall downpayment, also, one of the questions I get a lot is what happens if the buyer walks away from the deal because of financing or home inspection?

My answer is simply, so long as you do NOT waive your conditions prior to walking away, you should get your deposit back.

Fifth: As part of the offer you will have conditions attached

Typically in a single family home there will be two which are financing and home inspection. There will be dates attached to these conditions and you will need to satisfy the conditions either on or before the condition date.

Sixth: Possession date is also something that is negotiated

I always suggest to go in with your ideal possession day but always have a back up date in mind.

Alright, once you have removed your conditions, you will be waiting for possession day, in the meantime you will be getting set up with a mover and getting utilities and cable and internet set up for yourselves.

Possession usually happens at noon, it basically happens whenever the funds are transferred from your lawyer to the sellers lawyer. Once that happens, the house is yours!

Hopefully the novel above paints a solid picture for you, you need help with your home search or you simply have some questions for me, feel free to reach out via email or by giving me a call at 403-827-7527.