Ep. 1 | Why did I sell my condo after 5 years? #BuyandSellSeries

The first question that needs to be answered in this series is "Why did I sell my condo after 5 years?"

Many of you may be thinking that isn't a lot of time to own a property & I would absolutely agree with you!

This is the minimum amount of time that I would advise any of our clients to keep a property & the primary reason for this is that it takes several years of appreciation to offset the costs of selling.

Once you factor in land transfer taxes, real estate commissions & legal fees, you can end up paying anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000+.

There may be some exceptions to this for extremely hot markets that are seeing aggressive year-over-year appreciation (i.e. 15-20% or higher) but generally 5 years is the minimum.

Our decision to sell came down to three main factors.

Factor #1: Wanted more space

Originally when I purchased the condo 5 years ago, I was just a single guy so the 1-Bed + Den, 1-bath unit (640 Sq. Ft) was plenty of room for me but this changed at the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic lockdown when my fiance moved in with me.

As she was doing school online from home & I work largely from home, we quickly found out the condo didn't suit our new living style as it didn't provide any privacy when either of us was on a call.

On top of this, I had purchased 2 road bikes which I kept in the unit for safety (don't trust locking them up elsewhere) which ate into our space even more.

Additionally our condo didn't have any outdoor space which would be a nice asset to have, particularly during lockdown.

Factor #2: More natural light & a view

The condo we were living in was north-facing on a low floor that looked towards a data-centre & car dealership parking lot so we never received any direct sunlight except for a couple of weeks during the peak summer months.

As such, our unit always felt kind of dark despite having ample lighting inside.

This was a drastic change from many of the previous condos that I had been renting around the city which had great natural light & spectacular views so I longed to live in a place that would provide this for us.

Factor #3: Capitalize on the strong condo market while inventory remained low

At the time I was contemplating all of this, condo inventory was at a critical shortage throughout Toronto but particularly in the price range that I was thinking of listing my unit.

You always want to sell when you have little-to-no competition as it makes your property look better and I realized there was a period of time that I could capitalize on before things started to change in my immediate surrounding area (Distillery District, Corktown, St. Lawrence).

There were several new construction buildings that were scheduled to finish in 2022 & 2023 and these would bring added inventory that wasn't available previously which always has an impact on the older buildings around it.

After looking at all of these factors, we decided that this was the right time for us to make a move.

Now the next big question we had to ask ourselves.

Do we buy or sell first?

That's what we're going to cover in the next article so stay tuned for that on Friday!

Have any questions about our decision to move?

Feel free to leave it in the comments section below!

Rylie C.