Seventeen guides, in the order the questions come up.
Buying is a sequence, not a single decision. Each stage has a handful of things worth understanding before the next one starts. Find where you are below and begin there.
Working out the number
What a lender will actually give you, what the government gives back, and what the day itself costs on top of the price.
Working Out What You Can Actually Afford
What a lender will approve and what you can comfortably carry are two different numbers. Here is how to find the second one.
Getting a Mortgage
Pre-approval versus pre-qualification, the stress test, what a lender actually verifies, and why none of it is a promise.
First-Time Buyer Programs
The FHSA, the Home Buyers' Plan, and the land transfer tax rebates. What each is worth and who actually qualifies.
Closing Costs, in Full
Land transfer tax is one line of several. Here is the whole list, and roughly what each one runs.
Reading the market
How to tell what a home is worth, what the last few months are telling you, and who pays whom at the end of it.
Home Prices
Why the asking price tells you almost nothing, and what to look at instead.
Observing the Market
How to spend six weeks watching before you buy, and what to actually record while you watch.
Commissions
Who pays, how much, and what changed about the way it gets disclosed to you.
Before you write an offer
The paperwork that has to exist before you can offer, and the one thing worth doing before you commit to a house.
Agreements and Legal
The RIG, the BDRA, and the Agreement of Purchase and Sale: what each one commits you to, and the two clauses worth reading twice.
FINTRAC: The Identity Check Behind Every Purchase
Why your agent asks for photo identification, what happens to it, and why the form takes about four minutes.
Home Inspections
What an inspection catches, what it can't, and how to use the report as something other than a list of reasons to panic.
Making the offer
How to build an offer that holds up, which conditions are worth keeping, and how a competitive night actually runs.
The Offer Playbook
What being ready to offer actually means, which conditions to keep, and how competition really gets won.
Common Clauses
The conditions and clauses that go into an offer, what each one protects, and what you give up when you drop them.
Deposits, from the Buyer's Side
How much, when it is due, what it actually secures, and what happens to it if you walk away.
Offer Night, from the Buyer's Side
How a competing-offer night actually runs, what an agent may and may not tell you, and how to decide what to strip out.
From acceptance to keys
The short list of things that still have to happen in the weeks between signing and moving in.
If this is you
Buying and selling at once changes the order of nearly every decision above. Worth reading early, because it shapes what you are able to offer.
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