How to search properly, and what to do once you find something
Browsing listings is the easy part. What separates buyers who get the home they want from buyers who keep missing is usually everything around the search: being ready to act, seeing new listings early, and knowing what happens once you want to write an offer. Here is the whole sequence.
Searching, saving and getting new listings first
Search by what actually matters to you
Most people start with price and bedrooms and then discover halfway through that commute time, a legal second unit, a garage or a specific school area were the real constraints. Write down your non negotiables and your nice to haves separately before you start filtering. It changes what you search for.
Widen the geography more than feels natural at first. Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge are genuinely different markets at the same price point, and so are Guelph, the Wilmot villages, Brantford and the Hamilton to Burlington corridor. Looking at two or three of them tells you far more about value than looking at one of them very closely.
Save your search
Create an account here and you can save a search and come back to it, and save individual listings you want to compare. It also means you are not rebuilding the same filters every time you sit down.
Have a personalized Property Alert set up
This is the part that matters most in a market where good properties move quickly. A Property Alert is a saved set of criteria that emails you when a matching listing comes on the market, changes price or sells. I set these up individually rather than putting everyone on a generic city wide feed, because a feed that sends you forty irrelevant listings a week gets ignored within a month.
Tell me your area, price range, property type, bedrooms and anything specific such as a finished basement, a garage or no condo fees, and I will build the alert around that. Ask me to set up a Property Alert and it takes one short conversation.
Before you look seriously: financing
A pre approval does two things. It tells you what you can actually borrow, and it makes your offer credible when you find the right property. A seller choosing between two similar offers will take the one from the buyer whose financing is already in place.
Things worth understanding before you talk to a lender, stated as information rather than advice:
- A pre qualification is an estimate. A pre approval involves document review and is the one that carries weight.
- Rate holds have an expiry date, commonly in the range of a few months, and they are not a guarantee of final approval.
- Lenders approve the property as well as the buyer. Unusual properties, rural wells and septics, former grow operations, and buildings with known issues can be declined even when the buyer is strong.
- In Canada, a down payment below twenty percent generally requires mortgage default insurance, which is added to the mortgage. The specific thresholds and premium rates are set by the insurers and change, so confirm them with your lender or broker.
- Your maximum approval and your comfortable monthly payment are usually not the same number. The second one is the one to buy at.
I am not a mortgage broker and I do not give mortgage advice. I can introduce you to brokers and lenders who handle purchases in this area regularly, and I will always suggest you compare more than one. You can also use the mortgage calculator to model payment scenarios before you talk to anyone.
Showings: what to expect and what to look at
When you want to see something, send me the address or the listing and I will arrange it. Showings are booked through the listing brokerage and usually need some notice, particularly where a property is tenanted, since tenants are entitled to proper notice of entry.
What to actually look at once you are inside, beyond whether you like it:
- Age and condition of the roof, furnace, air conditioner, water heater, windows and electrical panel, and whether the heater is rented or owned
- Signs of water in the basement, around windows and below bathrooms
- Whether a finished basement or second unit was permitted, including ceiling height, egress windows and separate entrance
- Noise, both inside and from outside, and what the property backs onto
- Parking reality, not parking on paper
- For condominiums, the fee and what it includes, the building's reserve fund position, and whether a special assessment has been discussed
- For rural property, the well, the septic, internet service and the road maintenance arrangement
See two or three in a session if you can. Comparison tells you more than a single long visit.
Making an offer in Ontario
An offer is a written Agreement of Purchase and Sale. It sets the price, the deposit, the closing date, an irrevocable deadline for the seller to respond, anything included or excluded, and any conditions. The common conditions are financing, home inspection, and a status certificate review on a condominium. Each one protects you, and each one makes your offer slightly less attractive than an identical offer without it, which is the trade off you are managing.
In a competitive situation you will also be deciding on deposit size, closing date flexibility, and whether the seller has chosen an open bidding process. Ontario's rules now allow a seller to direct their brokerage to disclose the substance of competing offers to all bidders, so the process can differ from listing to listing. I will tell you which process applies before you write.
What I will not do is tell you to waive an inspection to win. I will tell you honestly what waiving it does to your odds and what it exposes you to, and then it is your decision with the information in front of you.
Closing costs a buyer should budget for
- Ontario land transfer tax, calculated on the purchase price on a banded scale. First time buyers may qualify for a refund up to a maximum amount. Toronto charges an additional municipal land transfer tax; Waterloo Region, Guelph, Hamilton and Halton do not.
- Legal fees and disbursements, including title search and registration
- Title insurance, which most lenders require
- Home inspection, and where applicable a well or septic inspection, a water test, or a WETT inspection for a wood burning appliance
- Appraisal fee, where the lender orders one and charges it through
- Adjustments on closing for property taxes, and utilities or condominium fees the seller has prepaid
- Mortgage default insurance where the down payment is under the threshold, plus provincial sales tax on that premium, which is payable at closing rather than added to the mortgage
- HST, which applies to newly built homes but not to resale homes. On a new build, confirm whether the price quoted is before or after HST and any rebate.
- Moving, utility connections and immediate repairs
A sensible planning figure is to hold a reserve beyond your down payment for these. The exact amount depends on price, property type and whether you are a first time buyer, and I will walk through the actual numbers for a specific property rather than a rule of thumb.
Frequently asked questions about buying
Do I pay you as a buyer?
Compensation arrangements are set out in a written buyer representation agreement before we work together, and in most residential transactions the seller's brokerage offers compensation to the buyer's brokerage out of the listing side. I will show you exactly how it works for any property you are considering, in writing, before you make an offer. Nothing about it should be a surprise at closing.
Can I see a property that is listed with another brokerage?
Yes. Any property on the MLS® system can be shown by me regardless of which brokerage holds the listing.
How fast do I need to move?
It depends on the property, the price band and the current market, which is why the market snapshot is worth checking. Some segments have multiple offers within days. Others sit for weeks and are negotiable. The way to be ready either way is to have financing arranged and a Property Alert running so you see things early.
Should I buy a condominium or a freehold?
It depends on what you want to be responsible for and what you want to pay for. A condominium fee covers maintenance you would otherwise organise and fund yourself, and it also reduces your control and is subject to increases and special assessments. Freehold gives you control and hands you the entire maintenance bill. Neither is automatically the better buy.
What about buying an investment property?
The financing, the due diligence and the math are different from a purchase you will live in, including tenanted purchases where the existing tenancy transfers with the property. Tell me that is the plan early, because it changes which listings are worth your time. The city pages below cover local investor considerations.
Can you help outside Waterloo Region?
Yes. I work across Southern Ontario, including Guelph, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Mississauga and into Toronto. If a move takes you outside the area I cover properly, I will say so and connect you with someone who does, rather than working somewhere I do not know.
Next steps: Ask Mathew to set up a Property Alert · Mortgage calculator · Current market conditions · What is my current home worth?
Search by area: Kitchener · Waterloo · Cambridge · Guelph · Wilmot & New Dundee · Hamilton · Burlington · Oakville
Mathew Toussaint is a REALTOR® with eXp Realty of Canada, Inc., Brokerage. This page is general information about buying residential real estate in Ontario. It is not mortgage, legal or tax advice. Listing information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed and should be independently verified.