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I’m starting a new home search!
This will not be the first home I’ve ever bought but its definitely a first experience to buying a home to live in exclusively. I’ll explain!
The first home that I ever bought was with my brother and the whole family was to be living in it. We still own that house in Brampton and the purchase process was quiet unique. We are a big family with six siblings and though my two sisters were happily married and living in their own homes, my mother insisted that it be a big enough home where they could come and stay. My mother is a home maker and has spent her life taking care of us and my late father (love you mom). The home is her sanctuary and she runs it very efficiently. I wasn’t practicing real estate at the time so we called on a friend, Adnan, to take us around and show places.
The home search was a long and drawn out process with numerous showings and we finally decided on a home after input from all family members and pursued with an offer. I’m sure Adnan was really happy to see us finally deciding on a home and going ahead with it.
This was eight years ago and since I’ve bought numerous investment properties, renovated them, sold ’em, helped clients buy homes and sell them but I still get a knot in my stomach when I think about purchasing a home especially a house that I’ll be calling home. I live in Cabbagetown right now and the property I own has two other tenants living in it too. I’ve never called this place home because I still consider my home in Brampton but this is changing. I’m looking at getting married in the next year and part of the process is to make a nest and find a place that we both find comfortable.
This series of posts is going to be about my home purchase process and what steps I take to ensure I make the right decision as well items that I will and can compromise on. This should also help anyone looking to make a purchase in the near future to see how they can go about collecting information from different sources that would aid their search.
Let me take a moment and highlight our criteria so we can discuss it a bit further in detail:
- A freehold property – it has to be a freehold property because a lot of the condos that we are interested in won’t allow a large dog, Jiya, that I currently have.
- A detached or attached garage – some of you know that I’m a motor head and I’d like to be able to bring my motorcycle downtown and ride it once in a while too
- I would be able to live in a two bedroom but I’m sure my partner in crime (PIC) will ask for at least three. She would like to see a guest bedroom and a separate office for me to work out of.
- She wants a place with a decent back yard or garden and a mud room for Jiya to be cleaned up. An en suite washroom with the master is a must with lots of storage.
- Area is a topic we have discussed in detail. She wants to move to the suburbs while I would like to be in Toronto. I love Cabbagetown and would like to stay in this area. Some of my reasons are because I’m involved in the community here and know the neighbors as well proximity to downtown and my business.
- The budget is another topic of discussion as properties in Cabbagetown start at around mid 500’s and the type of home my PIC wants could easily run close to 1M mark. Another consideration is to purchase a property that we can renovate but it creates a cash flow issue. A property that is renovated requires less cash as we would pay a portion of the renovation cost as down payment and the balance becomes our mortgage or we purchase a property with lower price and renovate it ourself.
We do intend to start a family so schools and day care will be a consideration down the line. At the moment we are looking at this property as a 5 year plan and where we need to be. If we buy in an area where the schools are good, then we could stay there longer.
Now that I’ve gone through what type of property we are looking for, our first step is to get together with our mortgage broker and come up a number that we would be approved for. I have a very good idea on what we can qualify for but I’m still looking for a professional to do their due diligence and provide us with an opinion.
I’m cheating too! I haven’t gotten the final number from the mortgage broker yet but we are starting to go out and see places today.
I will publish a series of posts outlining our adventures so you can come along for a ride with us!
Enjoy your weekend!
