Discussions

Just looking for a brief breakdown of what I'd need to pay if I sell my place and buy another. Not looking to speak to a realtor I'm just gathering general info. Any tips on making the sale of a place and buying the next? Does this get recorded in your income tax? Thanks

https://snj.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SNJ-Selling-Your-Home-Brochure.pdf

It does not get recorded in your income tax as long as it is a home that you are living in and selling to go to a new home that you will live in. I believe you have 3 years to sell your home if you have moved to a new home, in case it takes awhile to sell your former home. At least this is my understanding, but would talk to your accountant to be sure.

$1000-$1500 lawyer fees  
$7600 land transfer tax  
$12,000 to the realestate agent who sold my previous home (double ended so only charged 4% but if another agent had sold it I'd have owed 5% or $15,000..listing would take 2.5% and selling agent would take 2.5%)  
$18735 in CMHC premiums (fees) for only putting 5% down. (4.5% of purchase price on 5% down but percentage gets lower the more you put down)  
$2200 in mortgage penalties for paying off mortgage before the term was up (that was an unexpected hard lesson to learn).  
 
The numbers will vary depending on the house price and agents but that's an example.

Thanks for the above Another thing I wondered is how much do people mark above the price they want for selling and how much do they go below for buying? I'm just trying to have some idea/control of doing the whole sell and buy to manage my finances cause it's one of the most stressful things. I didn't understand the comment about income taxes and if its reported on that. Thanks everyone

We bought/sold 3 years ago so forget the costs.  
 
But tips for selling:  
1. Don't over price - we did thinking people would just low ball us offers, they did not. We had 27 showings in 3 weeks and zero offers. Lowered our price 10,000 and suddenly got lots of offers.  
 
2. Fresh coat of paint or touch up walls if needed. Declutter, declutter, declutter. We went through closets and got rid of or packed up items to make closets/kitchen cupboards appear more spacious. Get rid of all personal photos, personal trinkets, clean absolutely everything off counters in kitchen and bathroom, open shelves, on top of dressers etc. Look at online photos of show homes, that is what you are aiming for. Make sure it sparkling clean (this seems obvious, but so many we looked at were not!!). Friend gave me the tip to throw anything sitting out in a laundry basket and just shove it in your car for a quick clean/declutter if someone coming over short notice to view your home.  
 
3. As far as purchasing your new home we drastically low-balled but knew the house we were bidding on was empty, owners had built and new home and moved to BC, the house had been on the market for a year with several price drops. So know these things. If its new to the market its probably fairly priced. But we looked at comparables, made a list of things we would have to do to our new to us home and presented these with our low-ball offer.  
 
4. The fist offer on our home fell through as they did not like the home inspection, they were young first time home buyers and did not feel comfortable with repairs. We were able to get a copy of this and fixed everything on the list which cost us about $400 for an electrician to do a couple things and to install a new vent on our roof. The next buyer also paid for a home inspection and it came back fine.