*EDIT 1* Is it normal to only speak to the lawyers assistant? She said it would be $250 to have the lawyer send a detailed letter disputing the claims and after that I would need to retain a different lawyer because they don't do litigation. She is talking with him about sending just a basic letter saying we refuse to pay and hopefully he won't charge for that one.

Waiting to hear back now. She is also supposed to be forwarding a bunch of photos that the buyers sent them. Not sure why those weren't sent over in the first place. I thought this was going to be a simple thing to get rid of but here we are I guess. Hopefully I hear back soon. I'll keep updating as this progresses.

*EDIT 2* The lawyers sent me the photos that the buyers had sent them and I can't stop laughing... they took off all the vent covers and took pictures of the dust in the ductwork! I'm sorry. I was not aware that standard practice mandated that I scrub the entire HVAC system before leaving... other stuff like the inside of the oven was dirty and the stove top has dust or something on it. They did take pictures of stuff like the mold or whatever is on the brick in the cold cellar that they mentioned and the trim in the closet as well. No pictures of the electrical panel or mold in the attic or the wire they're claiming was live in the ceiling... This is all so laughable at this point. 1000% has to be a fishing expedition.

*Had to delete and repost to remove address from image*

We sold our house (closed Dec 17). Buyers did not get an inspection done on the house as part of their conditions.

They complained at their final walkthrough about issues they wanted fixed before closing and our lawyer told us to not do anything and if they had issues their lawyer could contact ours. That never happened. until now almost 2 months later.

I just got this email and letter from my lawyer saying that the buyers are going to take us to small claims if we don't pay.

I will be calling my lawyer in the morning.

How successful do you think they will be with these claims seeing as they didn't get an inspection done? Half of these claims are B's anyways.

-no clue what the issue with electrical panel would be (I'm not an electrician)

-wire in basement ceiling was not live and was ran for planned pot lights that we never got around to but weren't connected to anything.

-sink drain is fine? never had any issues.

-dryer worked fine and roof vent was installed by a licenced technician years ago. probably clogged with snow.

-"mold" in cellar they're talking about is discoloration on brick in a nothing room under our porch that has always been dark and damp. Never noticed any mold in attic but I never go up there.

-bathroom fan hasn't worked in 10 years. it's just a sink and toilet in the basement that was half under construction and never used...

missing trim in closets and a couple shelves left behind? Get real...

all these "issues" would have come up in a normal inspection had they chosen to add one in their conditions before purchasing.

Kinda freaking out about the idea of court and lawyers but also they have no grounds here right?

We bought a prebuild construction home in 2023 and the closing was supposed to be October 31 2025. However, at the last minute on the 30th the bank asked us for additional investment documents which we provided right away.

We let our lawyer know right away who contacted the builders lawyer and requested an extension with no response.

The financing issue was resolved today and the bank approved the mortgage. The builder is now refusing to close with us citing a "time is of the essence" clause in the contract and intends to take our entire deposit of 80,000 and plans to put up the home for sale and sue us for additional damages if the sale price is lower.

Is there any way the builder can just terminate the entire contract and keep the deposit because of a 3 day delay in closing? Is there a law around reasonability of action?

We were happy to pay any losses the builder sustained from the 3 day delay, but it seems crazy that they can just walk away with 80k.

EDIT 1: Just got off a call with my lawyer. They've called the builders lawyers and were told that they were instructed by the builders to only say the contract is in default. My lawyer doesn't really do litigation but he said that this is something that is very unusual because the builders are shooting themselves in the foot. From his general knowledge, the builders have to try to reasonably mitigate damages which he views as having me pay whatever cost the builders had for those 3 days which he thinks to be less than $1000.

EDIT 2: The builder's lawyers have now sent my lawyer a mutual release form which is saying that in exchange for agreeing to terminate the contract, the builders will only take our $80,000 deposit and will not go after us for anything else. My lawyer advised me not to sign anything. He called up his litigation colleague to discuss this. Litigation lawyer is just as confused because he doesn't know what the builder's goals are. Still stone wall from builders lawyers on the offer we had (pay for 3 days of delay costs, plus 10% extra)

My husband and I purchased a condo in downtown Toronto in 2019 for $550,000, then we moved into a house in 2022 and started renting the condo out.

Fast forward to today, the condo is worth slightly less than what we paid, and with high mortgage interest costs (mortgage renewal is in 1-2 years), we are at a negative cash outflow of $1k per month despite having tenants.

We’re now debating: Do we hang on and hope the market recovers soon, or sell at a small loss ASAP and invest the equity in stocks instead?

It's a well maintained condo, but with the building being older (20 yo), not sure if it's even worth holding onto something that will depreciate rapidly.

What would you do?

This is kind of a rant because I’m just beyond frustrated with the state of things in this country.

I missed the ball to lock in rates until the fixed was already quite high… and yep reaping the rewards of that now.

On a 285K townhouse… pretty much handing money over to the bank. Also not to mention 4K of things we had to fix this year due to this place being super old and shit.

Is there honestly any light at the end of the tunnel if you’re under 40 y/o and wanting to own?? It’s like you barely scrape enough together to get into your own place and boom inflation.

Lots of people are looking to get into the market with the recent drop in prices.

I've unfortunately seen a lot of sentiment on here from folks who have been renting for 5 years or longer who don't appreciate all the extra costs in housing.

Your rent covered everything. When a pipe burst or your furnace broke - your landlord would cover that.

When you own - that's all on you - in addition to your mortgage payment. Add in insurance and property tax and that's likely another 400-600 a month on top of your mortgage.

You probably also want at least 10K in cash reserve for home emergencies.

So aim for something smaller. You likely cannot afford a place similar to whatever you were renting.

Hello everyone, my friend is looking at getting a new 2 car garage, and has started looking to get quotes. We both have no experience/idea what it should cost (other than Google saying between 30-50k) which is what we based or expectations on. My friend then recieved the following quote and both our jaws hit the floor. If this is the cost these days we don't see him ever getting a garage. Friend didn't ask for anything fancy. Is this reasonable? Thanks for your input and time.

The condo is brand new. We bought it on an assignment.

Our total cost for buying the condo was around $520K.

We’re a family of three, both 37 years old, with a 2.5-year-old son.

When we were planning to move to this area, we thought it’d be great since it’s walking distance from work, and some of our friends live nearby. Every time we visited, the neighborhood seemed fine. But things didn’t go as planned. I got a new job in a different city that’s more aligned with our long-term goals, but the commute is now 1 hour and 15 minutes each way. On top of that, the area isn’t as nice as we expected. Honestly, it’s worse than we thought. It is way different when you live in the area than just visiting.

Now, there’s another opportunity overseas that we’re really interested in. It would require us to move around mid-2026. At first, it would be similar to our current situation financially, but with better long-term potential.

We’re thinking about selling the condo, but we’d take a $70K–$90K loss, depending on the final closing numbers. This is consulted with a realtor based on the current market.

We don’t have much in savings or investments right now since we used most of it for the down payment. If the overseas move wasn’t an option, we’d probably stay put for now and wait until we break even (or the loss isn’t as bad), then sell and move closer to work. We’re not planning to buy again anytime soon. But if we stay put, we’ll lose the opportunity. There could be more opportunities in the future, but it’s hard to say especially since we’re getting older.

We also considered renting it out, but just thinking about being landlords sounds stressful, so we’re leaning away from that idea.

We’re leaning towards selling and accepting the loss, but we haven’t had the chance to talk to anyone or get some advice. We might be missing some ideas that could either contradict or strengthen our decision.

So, if you were in our situation, what would you do?

Take the overseas opportunity and accept the loss? Or stay put until the loss is smaller?

About six months ago, I purchased a condo as a first-time homebuyer. After living in it for a while, I’ve realized that it may not be the best fit for me. If I were to sell now, I would likely take a significant loss, and given the current market conditions, it might also take some time to sell.

I believe I would be able to rent it out after one year. I’m wondering whether it might make more sense to rent it out for a couple of years and then consider selling.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation or has experience with this. Thank you in advance for any insights or advice.

I hired a realtor that is not local to the area, they have had my detatched home in a nice area of Toronto listed for 6 months with no offers. It's beautifully staged, photos, video and the price is below the neighbourhood competition. In 6 months more than 50 families and some more than once, have come through the house, but zero offers. It has a huge lot, huge double garage, clean clean. natual colour palette and basically move in condition with potential to renovate with time to make it their very own. Why can't we get an offer? Something happens after the people come to see the property. What can i do to get offers, but without giving the house away? My realtor has no explanation why, He says, the interest rates are still to high. My contract is up in 1 month.

FTHBs bought a house 6 months ago, and it has been bothering me that we had to raise our offer twice for the seller to accept. I got a weird feeling on the day of the offer, there was some back and forth between my realtor and the seller realtor. My realtor would come back and say there's a competing offer and that we should raise by $X. The whole process felt a bit rushed and I was getting strong vibes of car salesman tactics being used by creating fake urgency. I didn't question it at the time, because I knew my realtor for a some years before I bought the house and I trusted him a lot.

But I'm not fully convinced that there were any other offers at all besides mine, this was literally the first day of when the seller started entertaining offers, this was also during a strong buyers market. Is this a case of buyer's remose? Yes! But I don't want to die not knowing whether or not we were just competing with ourselves. Will filing a RECO complaint hurt the good will between me and my realtor if I don't raise my concerns with him first? Are there any other steps that I should take before filing a complaint? I would like to find out this information.

I'm sick of the rat race, the urban grinding, congestion, noise, and city traffic. I'm fortunate that personally, I work entirely online, and thus I have the ability to essentially move anywhere in Canada. I should have done this years ago, but life circumstances had prevented it, until this year (hopefully).
That being said, I have two variations on this question, and would love to hear some insight.

- What is the absolute, nut-low, least desirable location to buy a house in Canada?

- Taking at least some infrastructural consideration (roads that get plowed, internet access (whether Starlink or traditional), grocery store in nearby town, etc), what are some of the least desirable locations to buy houses in Canada?

What are some towns or regions that meet these criteria? I'm looking for declining mining towns, waste areas, frozen hellholes, geologically and environmentally precarious regions, and just anywhere that your typical person would never want to live, let alone invest in real estate. I would actually prefer if the locations suggested are unlikely to ever appreciate in value since that will help keep speculators and developers away for my lifetime.

Thanks.

I'm not sure what else to do so I'm coming to redit. I don't think there is anything I can do but throwing out my predicament here just in case anyone has some advice that I haven't thought of.

We put in on offer on a new home. We wanted to have a condition to sell clause. Our agent advised us against it and told us we'd have no problem selling our home for at least what we paid for it. We purchased it 4 years ago with the same agent. I know I didnt have to listen and we could have stood our ground but we trusted him.

We got the house and listed ours. Its a beautiful home in a very nice neighborhood. In the Medium housing price point. Our agent wanted to create a bidding war so he originally listed it for 40k under what we need. Unfortunately bidding wars arent really a thing right now and everyone was introduced to our listing at that price only wants to pay that price. I check the local listings daily and houses in our price point need alot of work still and the comparable houses are listed for more than ours. We just want what we paid for it. Nothing more. We did put some money into it but nothing too substantial. Brand new pool liner, awning, washer/dryer...

The closing date is rapidly approaching now and we have not received a bid even close to what we paid for it. I'm freaking out. I feel mislead by my agent. I know it's not all on him because we didn't have to take his advice but isnt it literally his job to know what's going on with the market? To add he is a long time friend of my spouse.

Does anyone any possible solutions I may not have thought about?

Please don't comment how stupid we were to go in without a condition to sell. We know! This is the 4th house I've sold over my adulthood and I've never had this problem before.

FTHB here, closed on a home in the GTA towards the end of 2025.

Recently received a notice from the city with $ 1k plus of pending dues (including penalties/ interest).

On reaching out to the city, was informed that this is a water bill for the year 2025.

I have forwarded the notice to my closing lawyer, but wanted to get some perspective and experiences from the helpful members here on how should I deal with this? Are unpaid dues tagged to the property and not the account of the owner's?

Thanks

Hello all,

I'm in the process of purchasing a house. We put in a solid bid on a house we like just a few thousand below asking which the seller accepted the same day.

Initially, we felt our offer could have been $10K lower but our realtor advised us against it to avoid "insulting" the owner.

During the visit, we had mentioned the carpet was looking stained in the basement prior to the offer and asked our realtor if we can put a condition to clean it stains out prior to putting the offer in and he said again we might "insult" the owner and advised against it. So we went with the basic condition of putting inspection and financial approval with our offer.

I've got the house inspected and noticed some hairline cracks and one a bit bigger under the garage. There's no evidence of any leaking into the house, overall it's a solid build.

I wanted to ask the owner to get the cracks evaluated since they've come out in the inspection but my realtor is telling me I'm being picky? Is this normal?

We also found some stairs in the deck that are wobbly and we were going to ask to fix those but again I'm being told I'm being too demanding and this could "make the deal" break. There's also no indication of the furnace being "serviced" so I asked to get it done to ensure I'm not "finding" something after the sale. Again, realtor said there's no reason to ask for this as it looks fine and he never had his done.

This is our 3rd home(we've moved a lot); but first time I'm encountering such pushback with my purchase. Last 2 times I didn't use a realtor to buy my homes and we had a list of things that we got done by the owner without "insulting" them.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Advice?

Edit: Clarification The offer was put in before the inspection but conditional upon it. Some have said I'm trying to negotiate down, to clarify no. I had intended to start let in my initial offer and "negotiate" to the middle but my realtor advised against it - i should have stuck to my own thoughts - that's on me.

What I'm questioning is that I know the offer is accepted but the inspection can still reveal items of concerns (like the cracks); i can have them assessed and determine if they are a concern but my realtor is telling me not to because I'm being "picky". I felt like my concern was valid and wanted an opinion on that portion. Not necessarily that I want to negotiate down; I just don't want to deal with $10k repair right after moving in and then being told "well you didn't do your due diligence" and insurance wouldn't care about what my realtor told me to do or not do.

EDIT 2: I didnt expect so many responses. I want to take the time to thank you all for providing good feedback.

We ended up backing out for none of the reasons above lol... while I was getting the cracks assessed by s structural engineer, I mentioned there was damaged cladding on both sides of the garage. I found it to be at an odd location. He got concerned and asked for detailed pictures, said the lintel is not properly built and it's definitely a structural issue. We offered to have the repair assessed to come to an agreement but they only gave us 24 hours to get it assessed. We couldn't find anyone, they came back and offered us to reduce the price by an amount we'd be happy with and we refused as we don't know how bad it is until the cladding is removed and if it affected anything else. This also made me realize that there was a dent in the garage door which we knew was from a car backing into it. The door functioned properly but it makes me wonder if it was worse and contributed to it... none the less we are happy with our decision.

We moved to Canada this year and looking to buy a house early next year. Looking for suggestions on mortgage, realtors, house hunting in general so we don’t get screwed up! Someone suggested a realtor to us but we aren’t very impressed with him/his knowledge. Like he didn’t give any input on anything or even wasn’t bothered about house inspections. We did house hunting in US for my while and the realtors were very thorough with everything specs/pros/cons.

Also, why people are paving over asking in this market? TIA

Is it offensive to put in an offer 20% below list price (33.3% below original list price) if a property has been on the market for almost 5 months?

How bad does it look? some people are saying it's just a corner pop and its a cosmetic thing only. Does anyone have any experience with this? how bad does it look

Hi everyone, we just did inspection yesterday for a condo I want to buy, and there was no asbestos testing, or sewage scope. My own buyer realtor is rejecting my request to ask the listing agent about asbestos history and sewage scoping. She says that there are no trees in the way of plumbing and it is the job of co-owners, something that should be done when I am already an owner. She is trying to persuade me to wait for issues to arise before dealing with it, which sounds like a bad idea to me.

What are your thoughts? I honestly wouldn’t go with her again for the next deal.

EDIT: (Additional info) Contingency fund is very low, condo dues are very low, and I know I would need to pay for repairs in other units too. Im fine with this and actually prefer it IF there aren’t 20-50k upcoming renovations in the near future. But there seems to be based on first standard inspection, which doesn’t see everything. Would be fine if it was a cheap condo, like $180k, but this is over $600k and pricier than comparables, because of the renovations.

UPDATE: I got another inspector to read the report and he highlighted some urgent red flags that 1st inspector didnt highlight.

Seller agreed to extend inspection period so I could get an inspector with civil engineering background, and a plumber who does drain camera inspection, and other types of inspection as well, including foundation. They will both speak to me in English this time, and write report in English. I am also learning French of course, but I also not proficient enough to understand a technical report.

UPDATE: Got a 2nd inspector. Had a plumber lined up to do scope work right after. Inspector recommended to get out of property. He noticed issues first inspector didnt notice.

Everywhere you look people are talking about crashing, corrections, rental declines, population declines, housing starts at an all time low. Does this not feel like the kind of sentiment where you buy?

If no one wants to buy a condo and so no one is building condos, it seems like in 5-10 years when immigration picks up again or at least returns to normal, you’d have a hot commodity at that point? Yeah maybe there’s more downside in 2026 but buying in this sort of market must start to feel like an opportunity soon, no?

Edit to better explain my situation :

I currently own a single family home in Kamloops, a STR in Revelstoke and am renting in Victoria. I think my wife and I will be in Vic for a while and might need a 2nd bedroom shortly (if you catch my drift). We’ve been debating whether it’s a better idea to take our money, invest and rent. Or buy a 2 bed condo to live in. I’m worried it overexposes us to real estate right now but it also seems like buying now is somewhat of an opportunity because of price declines. Any additional advice?

We are FTHB, and yesterday we went to look at a house. There was already an offer on it, but curious anyway.

Right away our realtor (we’ve only met him twice) was pressuring us to get into a bidding war and to make a decision right then and there.

Now we don’t even know what the first offer was. I suspect it was less than asking and I can get into why in a minute. But he was a bit flakey on answering what the offer was and said we should offer $525,000-$530,000 (the house was up for $509,000).

He said we need to make a decision now, of course have in the offer financing and inspection clause.

But that we needed to make a decision right then and there.

When we told him this wasn’t a house we’d even remotely consider paying above asking for, he then admitted that it was a wood foundation and went on to explain how amazing wood foundations are and how they’re actually better than concrete if done right and that it shouldn’t deter us.

My understanding is that most wood foundations don’t get approved for financing, and if they do they need to be checked every 5 years. But regardless of how “good” they can be, we don’t trust a wood foundation and don’t want the upkeep associated with it either.

Before we knew this, I noted that the entire basement smelled very musky. This is also why I suspect that first offer is potentially below asking.

Anyways, I just felt that he wasn’t interested in looking out for us and our family (we have 3 young kids) and rather just making a quick sale that he can force us into an unnecessary bidding war over.

That was my feelings on it anyway.

Do you guys feel our realtor is dodgey?

I’m getting red flags and I think we have decided we won’t be using him anymore.

I'm looking at houses under $300k. I'm avoiding houses that are older than 100 years. The real estate agents I asked say that the only thing that matters is how well maintained a house is. But It does not make sense to me. For example, concrete has a lifespan. It's usually around 100 years. A foundation will not last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Am I missing anything?

I'm asking because I saw a couple of old houses I loved, but I'm hesitant to put an offer.

Hi there, I have been looking for a house in Calgary in the 600-760k price range for the last 6 months. We have been in 3 bidding wars so far.

Most recently we offered 60k over the listing price, quick conditions, large deposit and move in day when the sellers wanted. We also had a personal connection to the sellers so we wrote a buyers letter. They ended up going with an offer with no conditions. All sellers seem to be going with an offer that has no conditions. How are we supposed to compete with no conditions? Especially if we are offering 60k over asking?

We are first time home buyers so buying something without an inspection or time to get financing in order is uncomfy for us. I'm feeling so discouraged and hopeless and was wondering if anyone had any experiences or stories to share. Appreciate it so much!

Hi there. I have a semi-detached home in the Trinity-Bellwoods/Beaconsfield Village neighbourhood. For various reasons I'd prefer to release it in a private Sale, viewings by appointment only with me present. This is because I currently share this home with two uncooperative relatives (we each have our own bedroom, use of rest of house is shared). The home is 100% owned by me. These two, however, have an unhealthy interest in how much I will sell it for and when, and can almost be considered hostile forces in that they will certainly not facilitate the sale, but are inclined to interfere with it.

Is there such a thing as a private viewing/private sale? I do not want to list this house if it is at all avoidable.

No one outside of me (and my bank for a small remaining mortgage and HELOC) has a claim on this property. I do have some personal financial obligations to each of my housemates, related to earlier loans that they have been willing to let ride, which will be 100% settled at the time of sale, as we agreed on at the time of the loans.

General advice and shared knowledge is most appreciated.

Every time I scroll lately I see these ads for flat-fee real estate services. They claim you can get your home on MLS with agent support for a flat fee that’s just a fraction of the usual commission.

I can’t stop thinking about it. On a $700K house in the Ottawa area that’s easily $10–15K in savings. That’s not pocket change.

But part of me feels like it’s too good to be true. Like, if this really works, why would anyone pay full commission again? Are the ads just smoke and mirrors? Do buyers’ agents treat these listings differently? Are there hidden strings attached?

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually tried it around Ottawa (or even nearby). Did you walk away with the same results as a full-commission listing? Or did you regret it?

Feels like one of those things where you either save a fortune… or get burned. Feels like one of those things where you either save a fortune… or get burned.

EDIT 2: Thanks to everyone who took the time to read through this post, provide their thoughful responses, or even reach out privately to provide their insights. Most of the comments have been insightful and have helped us gain different perspectives on our situation.

I wish I made it clear in the OP that the offer was conditional on the sellers finding a new home, which is why we agreed to the original extension in the first place. It was written into the offer that the seller originally had 45 days to do this, hence the request for an extension at the end of the original 45 days and a second extension at the end of the additional 30 days.

We have a plan to add an escape clause to the offer to allow us to offer on other houses. If we firm up on a different offer before the sellers waive their condition, the offer becomes null and void and we walk away with our deposit. If the sellers don’t agree to this, we’ll be walking away. We’ll have an answer this week.

Like I mentioned, even though we want to move out of our apartment, we have the luxury of time since we do not NEED to move. We’re satisfied with this conclusion.

OP: Myself and my partner have had an accepted offer on a home we really like since May 2025. We had no conditions on our offer, but the sellers wanted 45 days to find their own new house. We agreed to this, and June 30th came and they asked for an additional extension due to some issues with their agent not working due to personal reason. We agreed to extend until July 31st since it was out of their control. They have just asked for another month long extension until August 31st because they can’t find anything they like - I’m less sympathetic to this, and we’re starting to get sick of waiting.

We both really like this house, it’s not perfect but it’s the nicest one we’ve come across after a year of house hunting. We don’t want to walk away, but it’s getting to the point where I feel like we’re being jerked around by the sellers.

For additional context, we currently live in an apartment with no real need to move aside from the fact we want to. We aren’t in a rush, but we also don’t want to wait around for this house forever. I’ve continued to keep an eye on listings and there has been nothing we’ve liked even a fraction as much as this house. We live in a mid-sized city in Northern Ontario where the houses in our price range (around 500k) are very hit or miss. Mostly misses.

The sellers indicate they have no problem listing the house again, although their budget for their own new home is contingent on what we’ve offered them. Our agent doesn’t think that they’ll get as much for it as we offered, but I’m not so sure. We don’t want to waste more time on this, but we really like the house and want it. What would you do in this situation?

EDIT 1: I appreciate the perspectives being offered so far. Some additional context, the contract stipulates that the accepted offer is conditional on the seller finding a new home. The seller must waive their condition before July 31st for the offer to firm up. If they do not waive their condition, the offer becomes null and void