If you’ve got a ton of questions about buying your first home, you’re not alone. Join me, @RBC_Canada and a panel of 5 experts for the #FirstHome Twitter chat, on June 5 (tonight!) at 8 pm, EST. Get answers to your most burning questions – and Canadian participants get a chance to win RBC Visa Gift Cards!
As the summer begins, open house signs are popping up everywhere. I’ve been living in our house for eight months and I can’t help myself from thinking about how different buying a house has been from what I thought it would be. Both the first time, and the second!
The decision for Jesse and I to buy our first house was fueled by house prices in our city, four years of apartment living, and getting engaged. With a healthy side order of “I grew up with animals and if we don’t live somewhere where we can get a dog soon I’m liable to just smuggle one into the apartment”. There were still some houses that were affordable in our area, but the housing market was picking up. We wanted to have a place of our own but we had no idea what the process was going to be like.
I also had no idea how different home buying is between Canada and the United States until I started tweeting about what we were going through.
For Instance…
- Houses are listed early in the week
- You can go to showings through the week or to open houses on the weekend
- Most owners accept offers the weekend after the house is listed
- Buyers find out one the same day that they submit their offer (often less than six days from first seeing the house!) if they’ve bought a home
Our first house, after five years of improvements
Our first step was to meet with the bank to try and find out what we could afford. By that time I had played with so many online calculators that I was completely muddled and had no confidence in what we would be paying on a monthly basis toward our mortgage at any price point! And I had no idea who would help us figure that out- the bank? The realtor? A friendly neighborhood astrologer?
My tactic was to pelt everyone we met with housing or money questions, until someone stepped forward and said “Why yes! That’s my job!” (Our realtor ended up helping us with that after my signature question pelt.)
We decided to work with a mortgage specialist so we could find out all the financing options that were available to us on each property, and so we could choose a mortgage product that would be flexible when we eventually sold our house.
In 2008 I had no idea what I was going to do for a living long term, but I knew that it might be outside of a normal nine to five. I had just started this blog and my first etsy shop selling knits (Alert: There are photos of me that are a total time warp, and some very beginner etsy listing photos. You’ve been warned!).
Just in case I wanted to work for myself one day, I wanted a mortgage option that would have a simple process for transferring our mortgage over to our eventual second home, and that didn’t have a huge list of requirements that we had to meet when that time came. If you might want to work for yourself one day too, you can do this with any bank that you meet with.
In the end, we started looking in late March of 2008, bid on five or six houses, saw one naked person when we were at a showing (still burned into my memory!), and had our offer accepted on a tiny, sweet 720 square foot house in May. Thanks to our realtor’s savvy, we were the winning bid with eleven other potential buyers at the table and were able to move in that July. Our mortgage payment ended up being over $150 less per month than what we’d been paying in rent, which completely shocked me.
$150 less per month, and I got to have puppies?? Heavenly!
Looking back, the hardest part was looking at places without getting discouraged. As a first time buyer there wasn’t a lot that was beautiful in our price range, and there was a lot of competition for what could have been transformed into a nice space. I’m really glad we hung in there… and that I finally got my puppy fix.
Disclaimer: This post content is sponsored by Royal Bank of Canada, but the views and opinions expressed are only my own. As with everything, if you need legal or financial advice, speak one on one with an expert.
Do you rent or own? What do you love & loathe about it?
I definitely have both (I'll share them in the comments below) and hope you follow the #FirstHome discussion on Twitter tonight!
LAST UPDATED ON: June 5th, 2013
CATEGORY: All Posts
Wow! That is nasty. Sometimes you just gotta laugh about the “improvements” our darling previous owners made. Currently I’m still ripping up ugly black landscape cloth that provides an AWESOME anchor for weeds. Great idea, do-it-yourselfers! You owe me a massage. :)
Alright, my love it & loathe it items for owning a house!
LOVE: Not hearing other people through the wall, or worrying that my sport fanatic husband’s shouts are going to bother anyone. Also, quick & easy access to the outdoors.
LOATHE: When appliances break, and discovering (usually in an expensive & unexpected manner!) what maintenance the people who have owned the home before you didn’t do.
Or what they DID do in the wrong way! Do-it-yourselfers are the WORST. My place is a warning to the great dangers of do-it-yourself. Illegal plumbing, anyone?
Ugh, I can’t imagine! That’s terrible. I’ve run into that a little too, but not as severe. At our first house they patched the eaves… with PVC pipe that was cut in half and duct taped on. And the outside of the house was re-painted… as high as a 6 foot tall ladder would reach. We also had a creative soul who cut through a structural beam in the floor, so a quarter of the house was essentially free floating. No bueno.
We’ve owned our home for 3.5 years now and I have to say that really shoddily done repairs (DIY or otherwise) and “old house surprises” (leaky windows AND roof? it’s like an old house lottery and I’m the winner!)are probably at the top of my home owning loathes—— that and annoying neighbours, but you can’t win ’em all.
My home owning loves are of such a grand scale I could sing them from my rooftop —— but I’ll save you that particular form of torture. ;) I’ll be echoing a lot of what others have said: I love having our own space, to decorate or paint, to celebrate and mourn in, to be safe in, to make memories and cultivate dreams of the future in and most of all to be pantsless in —— because isn’t that what having your own place is about? Not having to make yourself decent for flatmates (kidding.. but only a little), or living your life on your own terms and not around the sometimes hostile borders of shared space.
!!!
i am so happy to have found your blog. you’re beautiful! thank you for sharing your creative heart with us.
xx
http://petalandplume.blogspot.ca/
Thanks so much for your sweet comment!
We are currently renting but working on buying a house… After 4 months of waiting for the banks to clear up some open liens on a house that we picked out, we finally gave up. Trying again, we will see how it works out :)
I’m crossing my fingers for you, Leigh! That sounds like it would have been a really frustrating experience, but also that as great as it might have seemed there’s a better place out there for you that doesn’t come with strings attached. I hope you find it quickly!
My husband and I own two (Yes, 2!) houses! We bought a townhouse back in 2010 on a “we NEED to have our own space” mission and renting just wasn’t an option since we have dogs and so many rentals in this town don’t allow them (or at least pups as big as ours). We decided to buy a bigger detached home when we found out we were expecting last fall and just rent out the townhouse.
While there’s more costs involved with owning, we like the freedom of being able to do what we like to our home.
Oh cool, Kara! That’s so unique! I’ve always wondered about buying a second home to rent out, but it seems like a big unknown so we haven’t looked into it seriously. I love that you guys have taken that plunge- and that you have don’t just have one place that’s dog friendly for your pups, but two!
We have owned, but we rent right now. I like renting when it comes to large cost to fix things. I dislike it, because it is not permanent.
I totally relate to that! When we moved into our first house the washer, dryer, fridge, and oven all died within the first month of being there. And it also needed new eaves troughs. It was crazy! Such a reality check. This time around we’re not going crazy and doing everything up front. And while renting isn’t permanent, when you’re in a place that you like it can be wonderful. I hope you’re in that situation now xo
My fiance and I bought our first house almost a year ago, and it was actually a great experience. I’m a natural worry-wart, which was the only bad thing, but it went incredibly smoothly. We looked at (what felt like) about a million houses, immediately fell in love with one, put in an offer about a week later (things must move much more slowly in America, because this house was on the market for a month before we even saw it!), and had the offer accepted the next day. No one else was interested, so we were in a great position to bargain and we got it for an amazing price. Geez, does it just sound like I’m bragging now?? Really, I think the market is just excellent for buyers right now, which was the only reason we could afford it at all.
What surprised me the most was something you said, too – our mortgage turned out to be only $10 more than the rent on our previous apartment! I was floored by that.
Claire, you’re allowed to brag with an experience like that. That’s amazing! It’s great that it ended up being so affordable for you. The housing market is a bit of a crazy thing, but I’m thankful that I was able to get in when I did so I could snag a home I love. And I’m glad you got that too!
Oh my word, I remember buying our first house too – and being 9 months pregnant! Do not recommend that in any way :) Our experience was similar to yours, only we ended up waiting for about a week on the mortgage underwriter for our approval to go through because whoever it was had made some glaring errors (our mortgage broker wasn’t happy) and it seemed to take forever for them to get repaired.
I’m glad things worked out the way they did – I do love our house now.
Oh my goodness, I can’t imagine how stressful that would be at 9 months pregnant! You’re such a trooper! It’s great that it ended with getting the necessary repairs made though. What a relief that you could move in with things already crossed off your list. Well done, Claudia!
We’ve been renting since we got engaged and we actually just last week got our offer accepted on our first home!!! A cozy 1000 sq. ft 1950s ranch on a quiet street! I’m so excited I could burst! But not looking forward to buying a mower! ;)
Congratulations Meg, that’s so exciting! We just ran into that too- we’ve always had a push mower because our place was so small. We got home from a vacation yesterday, and the push mower can’t get through it!! We had to borrow one from family and will be taking the plunge on a “real” mower on the weekend. I hope you’re still riding the high of having your offer accepted. Enjoy it as long as you can!
I own my house and bought it 4 years ago, but after a divorce last year, I had to refinance on my own and that process was crazy too. For me, I think the biggest thing now is that I’ve been doing a lot of changes in my house and have come to love it for a number of reasons, but it’s small and I’m hoping to have a family so this house is not entirely the best for that, so I know that I’m going to leave the house and I can’t imagine how difficult that will be! Any advice Kyla on moving from a house you’ve loved & put your hardwork and love into?
That’s really tough! That’s exactly what we did when we moved into our first home. It was beautiful and really fit us well… but wouldn’t fit us in the long term. What helped me was remembering that just because I’m not going to live there forever, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t put my energy into making it a beautiful place to live for now.
When we went to move we met with the realtor and found out what improvements we should make and what small ways we could de-personalize the house to get it ready for showing. That, along with looking at other houses we could move into, was the biggest help in switching into moving mode. The other thing to remember is that with that comes a lot of excitement for the future, so it’s might not be as hard as you think it will be :)
I own my home. I was honestly surprised by how upsetting and somewhat depressing the whole process of buying a home was. Because I didn’t have the luxury of time when I looked for my house–I had to get out of my apartment fairly fast–it was discouraging to waste hours viewing house after house that wasn’t as represented. Even my realtor was getting discouraged, though she tried to hide it.
Then once I found a place I loved, the bidding wars began. In one case, the seller’s realtor kept coming back to us and asking if we were willing to increase our offer…playing me against other prospective buyers. The home I live in now is the third one I bid on. I lost the first two, but in retrospect I’m glad I ended up with this one. Some of my early bids were based on desperation, as they were the best I’d seen up to that point.
If I have any advice for first-time home owners it’s to be careful not to let others influence you. Looking back, I would not have chosen this area. I initially looked at condos because others told me I wouldn’t be able to handle a house on my own, and that definitely would have been the wrong decision! I had a mortgage broker for the first mortgage, so I was confident she would get me the best deal, but what I didn’t know at the time was that brokers typically have relationships with a few banks and it’s a “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” situation. When I transferred my mortgage, I got a much better deal with a much nicer financial institution that treated me like a person instead of a number.
Holy, there’s so much good stuff in there! The bidding war situation is so frustrating. While I understand that it’s a necessary evil, I don’t like how there’s no transparent & they can “jut ask” if you want to increase without any disclosure of if its even necessary. On our first home we were the winning bid of TWELVE bids! Staying positive is hard, especially in that high pressure situation, and not weighing other people’s opinions above your instincts is incredibly important.
Amazing job on getting a better rate on your mortgage when you transferred it! That all adds up in a big way.
We’re currently renting and I’m itching to buy a house! I’m sick of not being to make real changes in our space. =[
Oh that is frustrating! There are some great things you can do in apartments too, but if you have a strict lease it’s challenging. Thankfully there are more products like wall decals that you can remove, or putting up a colourful drape up against a wall instead of painting (we had that in our last apartment and it looked great!).