Open house etiquette is mainly about respecting the seller’s home, following the host agent’s instructions, and being considerate of other buyers. It may sound pretty straightforward, but toeing the line between being polite and getting the answers you need can be easier said than done, especially if you want to look closely, ask questions, take photos, or discuss the home while you’re there. In...

Before making an offer on a house, it helps to know what you can afford, what the home may be worth, and which terms you’re comfortable with. After all, once you find a place you really like, things can move quickly, and that’s not the best time to start figuring out your limits. In this post, we’ll go over six things to do before making an offer so you’re ready when the right home comes...

There’s no set amount of time you have to live in a house before selling it in Canada. But since selling sooner can affect how much money you walk away with, timing is worth thinking through. In this post, we’ll look at what affects how long you should stay, whether selling after only a few years is a problem, and when selling sooner can make sense. What Factors Affect How Long You Should Live...

There’s really no set number of times you should view a house before buying it. In practice, many buyers feel confident after 1–2 viewings of a specific home, and some experts recommend at least two for serious contenders (first emotional, second methodical).  Basically, though, you should just aim to attend enough viewings to be comfortable with the property and be sure you haven’t left any...

There are lots of reasons a seller may reject an offer. It may be because of the price, conditions, closing date, competing offers, or other terms that don’t work for them. The frustrating part for buyers is that an offer can look perfectly reasonable on paper and still lose out for reasons that have little to do with price. In this post, we’ll look at the main reasons sellers reject offers,...

In most cases, you should consider buying a house with a shared driveway if the legal access, maintenance responsibilities, and parking rules are clear and workable. Sure, a shared driveway may not be ideal, but it isn’t automatically a problem either. You just need to understand how it is owned, used, and maintained before making an offer. In this post, we’ll explain how shared driveways work,...

To sell a very small house, you should focus on making the space feel as functional, open, and easy to live in as possible. Buyers will still notice the square footage, of course, but that isn’t always what decides how they feel about a home. A small house can still make a great impression when it seems practical, comfortable, and well thought out.  In this post, we’ll walk through five simple,...

Even though it’s the last thing many sellers want to do, sometimes it makes sense to lower your asking price to help your home sell. If you’re getting showings without offers, sitting on the market longer than comparable homes, or receiving repeated feedback that the price feels too high, those usually aren’t signs that you want to ignore.  In this blog post, we’ll cover five signs that...

In many cases, you may worry about a house not selling in Canada when it’s clearly falling behind the market, and the signs suggest the problem is more than just normal timing.  Of course, a slow sale doesn’t always mean something’s wrong, but there does come a point where it stops looking fleeting and starts looking like a real issue worth addressing. In this post, we’ll look at the...

You can usually tell a house is a cheap flip when it looks shiny and new on the surface, but shows underlying issues upon closer inspection — think uneven floors, lingering moisture, or half-updated plumbing or electrical. And it’s something that you’ll want to spot, because the “new” look can distract you from problems you’ll be the one paying to fix later.  In this post, we’ll...