Ep. 4 | How long does it take to buy a condo in Toronto? #BuyandSellSeries
One aspect of the buying process that will vary greatly from person to person is the amount of time needed to find the right condo, especially in a competitive market like Toronto.
Some people will buy the first place they see and some people take 20, 30, 40+ showings & several offers before they decide on a property for them.
A helpful way to help shorten your buying process is to get educated on the marketplace before you seriously start looking and this can be done by going to a site like TorontoRealEstate.ca to setup a search profile for yourself.
This allows you to enter all of your criteria (size, location, price range) and then you'll be notified via email/text as soon as a property comes on the market matching those specifications.
I started doing this in May-June which gave me several months to gather information about what I could expect in different neighbourhoods before starting our in-person showings in late August.
The first showing we had was at a 2-bed + den condo in Corktown that fit a lot of the criteria we had.
It was over 1000 Sq. Ft, had a nice view of Corktown Commons & was in a great neighbourhood that we liked a lot.
We submitted an offer for the unit (more details about this in a future episode) but were ultimately rejected as the seller wasn't willing to negotiate from their list price (that was severely overpriced).
I won't go into the specifics of each unit here (watch YouTube video above for these details) but here's a recap of our other showings:
- 2nd showing: 3-bed townhouse in Corktown | Nice space but no privacy
- 3rd/4th showings: 2-bed + den townhouses in Harbourfront | Great layout & space but a bit beyond our comfortable price point
- 5th showing: 3-bed condo in Corktown | Decent layout, no view, lack of privacy
- 6th showing: 2-bed + den condo in The Beaches | Odd layout, too pricey
- 7th showing: 2-bed + den condo in Upper Beaches | Massive unit but older building with higher maintenance fees
- 8th showing: 2-bed condo in The Beaches | Good layout but very low ceilings & no view
- 9th showing: 2-bed + den townhouse in The Beaches | Cute, cozy unit with wood burning fireplace but was very dark
- 10th showing: 2-bed + den condo in Regent Park which we ended up buying
Our in-person search period lasted from late August to early November and consisted of 10 showings and 2 offers (one of which was accepted).
This is probably the average amount of time that you can expect to be looking for a condo in Toronto right now with current inventory levels however this has the potential to change in the future should we see more properties on the market.
The question that might be coming to your mind is "how did you know it was the right place to submit an offer on after 10 showings?"
We're going to deep dive into this on the next episode to be sure to stay tuned for that!
Have any questions about our showing process?
Leave it in the comments section below & I'll gladly get back to you!
Rylie C.