My honest experience of buying and selling a house

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From the minute I became an adult, I dreamed of owning a house. In 2009, I was living in my parents’ house with my ex, then we moved into our first apartment in 2011, and even though we worked minimum wage, I couldn’t wait to stop giving money to a landlord and finally own a nice house that’s mine. Here’s my very honest and brutal experience of buying and selling a house (and the anxiety that comes with it).

October 2016 – buying our first house

We got our first house. A nice semi-detached house, in a small town that I ended up deeply hating (living in an agricultural town was not what my Suburbs-raised self thought it would be. I’ll talk about that in another blog post, stay tuned!).

Back then, I had just started working at my actual job, and I was making about $20,000/year more than my previous job. So, we qualified for a $200,000 mortgage. We had to choose between a cheap house to renovate in the town I was targeting or move a bit farther and buy a brand-new semi-detached for the same price. My innocent soul chose the brand-new house, much farther away from Downtown Montreal, where I work. Bad decision #1.

Two years later…

After going through a lot of unexpected, yet incredibly stressful events (including my daughter having her first seizure, the most terrifying thing I ever went through), I decided I had enough. But see, at this point, we had owned our house for only 2 years, and our mortgage was fixed for 5 years, which means we had to pay a penalty. I didn’t care, I just wanted to leave this town. We put our house on sale through a realtor. Oh my god, I was not ready for this.

Paperwork, and more paperwork

First, you sign a ton of papers that basically ties your soul to your real estate agent. Your soul is theirs until they sell your house, or until the contract is over (ours was 12 months). I didn’t know it back then, but you are allowed to negotiate the terms of your contract with them. Before you sign anything, make sure to shop around to find the one that suits your needs.

Picture-perfect house

Then, your house must be worthy of Pinterest for the appointment with the photographer. Why? Potential buyers want something ready-to-buy. They don’t want to see your stuff in there, they want to see theirs. The same goes for family photos, posters, shady art pieces, etc. And your house must be clean and smell nice for EVERY. SINGLE. VISIT. That’s fine, you say. Try that with a 4 years old and a 3 years old that wreak havoc behind you every time you clean up.

It’s not you, it’s me

Also, you need to remind yourself that, unless the Property Brothers take care of selling your house, you won’t get an offer right away. You will get a ton of visits, and a ton of reasons to not buy the house. Don’t take it personally (says the girl who takes it VERY PERSONALLY). It’s not against you, it’s just that your property doesn’t suit the buyer’s needs, and it’s okay. You will sell your house someday.

It gets very frustrating, I know.

Six months later…

We finally sold our semi-detached and left this town that I hated so much.

Now that it was my time to be the buyer, I had a very strict list of criteria. I knew which neighborhood I wanted to live in because I wanted my kids to go to this specific district elementary school. I knew what to look for (age of the roof, windows, doors, bathroom, kitchen, electricity, backyard, heating, etc. I’ll address this in another post).

We finally found the house that was going to be our home until we die.

But life being life, I decided to get a divorce less than a year later

Unfortunately, neither of us had the means to keep the house (it was way above our budget, so clearly, we couldn’t afford it alone). It was sold in March 2020, right before the pandemic hit us. The house has been on the market since December 2019. There was a LOT of interest in it, even though it was just put on the market, but since it was built in 1986, there are more than a few problems with it (nothing major, but the bathroom needs a major makeover, and you rarely do it under $10,000).

Lots of visits, lots of cleaning

We’ve had a lot of visits. Every time, I go through the same stress of cleaning up, except that now, my kids are 6 years old and 5 years old. My son is quite the tornado, so when I finish cleaning the main floor, I have to do it all over again!

So, I hope my story helped you through your journey. I am now living in a trashy apartment while waiting for my fiancé to move to Canada. We’ll buy another property in about 2 years, and I am never moving again!

Are you looking to buy or sell a house soon? Make sure to check my post about the 8 Things to know when buying a house in Canada and 10 things you should know before selling your house that could help you!