It’s not necessary to have financing in place before you start house-hunting, but we recommend it. After all, it doesn’t make much sense to spend time looking at $600,000 houses if it turns out the bank will only give you $400,000.

This makes even more sense if you’re a first-time home buyer, as the banks have now put certain rules in place to make sure you really can afford a house. These rules aren’t necessarily restrictive—but to avoid the unexpected, we suggest you always check with your bank as a first step in the home-buying process.

Like many big decisions in life, there’s no easy answer to this question. If you buy a new home before you sell the one you’re currently in, then congratulations—you’ve got a new house lined up and you won’t have to deal with the stress of being “homeless” until you can find something.

However this can put you in a place where you can only make a conditional offer to purchase someone else’s house. In other words, you’ll have to say to the seller “We’re going to buy this house as soon as we sell ours.” With competition in the real estate market getting hotter, that can leave you exposed to the threat of a buyer coming along and saying “We’ll buy your house today—with no conditions.” This might mean you lose the house you wanted to buy.

On the flipside, if you sell your current home before buying a new one, you’ll never run into this problem. But this can be a very stressful approach—you never know how long your house might take to sell, or how long it might take you to find a new one… And you could end up spending a lot of money on a hotel to live in if things take a turn for the worse.

This question has no real answer. Yes, it’s perfectly OK to buy the first house you see—if you feel it’s the right one for you. Or perhaps you’ve looked at 10 properties and there’s something wrong with every one. Either way, this is your house—and you’re going to be the one living there—so whatever works for you… Works! We want to help you find your "this is it" space.

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Are you a “homes” expert? Even if you know a lot about them, buying and selling houses probably isn’t what you do all day. To us at CENTURY 21 Poirier Real Estate, it makes the most sense to do what you do best—and leave the sometimes complicated buying and selling process to the people who do this professionally.

In Alberta, REALTOR® fees for both the buyer’s and seller’s representative are typically paid by the party who’s selling their home.