Cost to sell your home in Canada. Is it worth to sell your home?
Owning a home can be costly. Before you sell, you may want to consider a few things.
Is your home show-home ready? You want to showcase your home in its best light to make sure it sells quickly. Before you list, here are some things to consider
Painting. Painting your home to a neutral colour will help to sell your home. Fix and patch any holes, scratches, dents.
Carpet Cleaning. It can help to take out any unwanted odours or stains.
Furnace Maintenance. It can show pride in ownership and can help to ensure that your furnace is working. Replace any filters can help to provide the new homeowner ease that the home was maintained regularly
Home repair. Which fixups are necessary and which ones can be reduced in the final sale price (such as replacing cracked windows or repairing the roof). It can be a cost that the new homeowner can make, or if you want to sell your home for top dollar, sometimes you should fix it. Asking a Realtor or an independent appraiser to can to eliminate the questions.
Home staging. It is optional but it is something that can help to provide a wow factor to the prospective buyer. Providing staging or a show-ready home has been proven to increase showings, and allow you to sell your home for more vs it vacant
Landscaping. It is important to showcase the home before you walk in. Landscaping to us would be regularly mowing the lawn, shovelling the sidewalk, removing the weeds.
Pre-inspection reports. Are optional, but it can help to show people that you’ve taken the initiative to fix up your home before.
Lights and heat while the house sits empty.
Extra homeowners' insurance for the vacancy period. Check with your carrier: Your homeowners' insurance might not apply when the home is "vacant" (as defined by your policy). You can ask for a rider to cover any period of vacancy.
Window washing. It can help to showcase your home especially if the home provides lots of natural light or views.
Closing costs
Real Estate Agent Fees. Typically in Calgary, the real estate fee ranges from 7% on the first hundred thousand, and 3% on the remaining. That is split between both the buying agent as well as the selling agent. The seller takes care of both sides of the commission in most instances. The importance of a real estate agent is to effectively sell your home and market it in the best light. Paying for a well-qualified agent will pay itself off.
Legal fees. Legal Fees range from $800-$1500 in Calgary, it could be more expensive depending on the complexity of the deal.
Mortgage discharge fees. Sometimes it’s waived depending on if you port your mortgage to a new home. Talking to your mortgage broker or bank to determine exactly what that figure works out to so that you aren’t surprised.
Condo Documents – By-laws, Rules, HOA, and other documents can be costly to get especially in a time crunch. When an AGM happens annually, you must attend and collect all the documents for when you decide to sell your home. Without doing so, it can be upwards of $500 to collect all the documents, which would be the responsibility of the owner.
Real Property Report or Title Insurance – A Real property report is a legal document that the Alberta Land Surveyor prepares that is a drawing of the property, the boundaries, and the buildings and structures on the land. It is a required document when the transfer of land happens. It is approximately $500-$700 and approximately 2 weeks to complete, depending on the size of the property. Usually, an RPR is good for as long as no changes have been made to the land, add a deck or a fence will mean that you will need a new RPR upon the sale of your home. Title insurance protects property buyers and mortgage lenders against any defects or problems with a title when there is a transfer of property ownership. If a title dispute arises during a sale, the title insurance company may be responsible for paying specified legal damages, depending on the policy. Title insurance is not a substitute for an RPR, however, in new homes, the builders prefer to have title insurance over RPR because the land may change by adding in a fence, deck or garage and owners will need to get a new RPR anyway upon the sale of their home.
Posted by AMANDA KU on
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