10 Steps to Buying Your First Home
By Matthew Lee, 2003 BBA grad and sales manager at Macdonald Realty.Buying and selling real estate is often one of the largest transactions that most of us will ever make in our lifetimes. These experiences can be thrilling, rewarding and sometimes a little stressful—especially if it is your first home.
Hiring a knowledgeable buyer’s agent to assist and guide you through the process will help minimize the potential for worry and any unforeseen challenges.
However, understanding the basic steps ahead of time will help you feel more comfortable and prepared when it comes time to “make your move.”
While a comprehensive timeline include more specific details, a typical process would include the following:
- Attain financing pre-approval from a qualified mortgage professional to determine your purchasing power.
- Choose a real estate professional who will understand your needs.
- Conduct a neighbourhood analysis with your agent to determine where he or she should begin looking.
- Select and view prospective homes. Keep tours to a maximum of five properties at a time.
- Once you have selected a property to write an offer on, be sure to determine price; deposit amount; adjustment, completion and possession dates; and subject clauses.
- Submit your offer (AKA: Contract of Purchase and Sale) and wait for acceptance or counter offer. The majority of deals require some level of negotiating. Your agent will work with you to achieve the best possible outcome.
- Once the offer has been accepted, conduct your due diligence: inspection, title search, property disclosure statement, home and fire insurance eligibility (to ensure financing), and, for attached housing, review of pertinent strata documents including strata minutes, financial statements and engineer’s reports.
- Upon subject removal subjects and submitting deposit(s), hire a lawyer or notary to complete closing documents and conveyance of property / land title registration. Your agent will provide a list of experienced lawyers.
- Finalize mortgage financing and follow up to ensure successful completion (the day the mortgage funds are advanced to the seller).
- Take possession of property and schedule move.
One of the great perks of being a first time buyers is that you are eligible for property purchase tax exemption provided you meet the following criteria:
- The home must be claimed and used as a principle residence
- The buyer must never have previously owned property anywhere else in the world
- The buyer must be a Canadian citizen or a resident of Canada and have resided in BC for at lease one year prior to the purchase of the property
- The buyer must finance the purchase with a mortgage and the amount of the down payment must no exceed 30%
- Full PTT exemption applies to properties priced at $425,000 and below. There is a partial exemption for properties priced between $425,000 and $450,000, while no exemption is offered for properties priced over $450,000.
Matthew Lee graduated from the BBA program in 2003 and is a sales manager with Macdonald Realty, a locally owned company with 17 offices and nearly 1,000 sales professionals throughout BC.
