The hard part of downsizing is not the house. It is the order you do things in – and the fact that the place you have lived in for thirty years is worth a number that has nothing to do with what it is worth to you.
Most people I meet have been thinking about this for two or three years before they call anyone. There is no rush from me. What there is: a straight answer on what your house would sell for, what the next place actually costs once everything is counted, and whether the gap between them does what you want it to do.
- Both numbers, not oneWhat your house sells for and what the next place costs, including the parts people forget.
- The order of operationsSell first or buy first, and what each one risks in this market.
- What not to spendWhich repairs pay for themselves before a sale and which are money you will never see again.
Get both numbers
Free. Plenty of people run this two years before they move, which is exactly when it is most useful.
Sell first or buy first
In a market where houses are taking longer to sell than they did two years ago, buying first is the riskier of the two. It means carrying both, or committing to a closing date you have to meet with money you have not received. Selling first means you know your number exactly, and it means you may need a short rental or a long closing.
The third route – closing both on the same day – works, and it is how most downsizes actually happen, but it needs the two deals to be built to fit each other from the start rather than bolted together at the end.
The costs that surprise people
Land transfer tax on the next purchase is the big one, and in Toronto it is charged twice – once by the province and once by the city. On a $900,000 condo that is a five-figure line item before you have bought a lamp.
Then: legal fees on both ends, the real estate commission, moving and storage, and the cost of clearing a house that has been lived in for decades. The gap between what your house sells for and what the condo costs is not the money you walk away with. I will show you the number that is.
What condo living actually costs each month
Maintenance fees are the figure people fixate on, and they matter – but read what they include. A building where the fee covers heat, hydro, water and cable is not comparable to one where it covers water only, and the difference can be three hundred dollars a month. A building with a healthy reserve fund is not comparable to one facing a special assessment, and that difference can be twenty thousand dollars in one letter.
I document Etobicoke buildings for a living – 258 of them are on this site – and I will tell you which ones I would not put my own family in.
What is worth doing before it lists
Declutter, deep clean, paint where it is tired, fix the things an inspector will flag, and stage the rooms that sell the house. That list is almost always enough. A new kitchen the month before you sell is a gift to the buyer, not to you.
- What is my house worth right now
- What you would actually walk away with
- Land transfer tax on the next place
- Every condo building in Etobicoke
- What a specific building has sold for
- Book a call
Questions people ask first
It is the best time. The things that make a downsize go well – deciding what stays, spreading the clearing out over months instead of a weekend, timing the sale into a season that suits your house – all need runway.
No. A good share of these conversations end with “not yet”, and I would rather be the person you call in eighteen months than the one who pushed.
I can put you in front of people who do it properly, and sequence it so nothing is thrown out that should have been sold and nothing is packed twice.