Buying Before Selling Your Home is a Risky Gamble

With Toronto housing prices being so crazy, a lot of people are priced out of the Toronto market and therefore forced to buy outside the city. This is what happened to us, and for 2 years we ended up commuting 1-1.5 hours from Bradford to Downtown Toronto. We couldn’t take the long drive or the exhaustion anymore, so we asked our circle of friends if they could recommend a trustworthy realtor. Reece came highly recommended to us by a colleague at work, so we gave him a call. Reece took us out to dinner and asked us about what we’re looking for. He then explained the process of buying a home. Throughout the conversation he told us there’s no pressure to contract with him, and that he’s happy to answer any questions that we have. We kept in touch with Reece over the next six months, until we were finally ready to sell our home and buy a new one closer to the city. We knew that our price range of $730,000 for a detached home in the Toronto market was a tough ask, but Reece said he will do everything he can to make this happen for us. From the list of homes Reece emailed us one morning, my husband found a home we were interested in and called Reece right away. Within hours, we were at the property assessing if it met our needs. With Reece’s guidance and advice, we decided to make an offer that same afternoon, and without hesitation. Reece recommended that we offer above the asking price to ensure that we get the house. The selling agent tried to stall in an attempt to get more offers, but Reece didn’t leave room for that, and we finally owned our dream home only 35 minutes away from work! Now came the scary part. Since we bought our new home before selling our old one, we were starting to worry about how much our home would sell for and how long it would take to sell. Reece worked hard alongside us to ensure that our home would be sold for as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and stayed patient with us at all times. Remarkably, our home sold within one day, for $40, 000 over asking. We were shocked – not because we didn’t think it was worth it – but because a house down the street, with a finished basement (ours wasn’t) had been sitting on the market for 30 days. Our house sold at the exact same price that this one was listed, and in just one day. We truly believe that our house sold as quickly as it did due to the strategies that Reece suggested and then helped us to coordinate. This included hiring an interior designer & staging, painting, window cleaning, photography and videos (all of this paid for by Reece!) which made our home look amazing (better than the neighbour’s) in its listing, even though we didn’t have a finished basement. These are all details we likely would not have thought of, and even if we did, would not have had the time or the patience to effectively coordinate. Reece is extremely detailed, down to including clauses in our contract that would protect us from any issue with the closing. It’s thanks to Reece that we found our dream home within our price range, and that we sold our old home above asking. From buying to selling, Reece stayed patient, and did not spare any time, expense or emotional support. Buying first and selling later is scary, and Reece did everything he could, including paying out of pocket, to ensure that our home would sell quickly and for an excellent price. Given that our first home was purchased as a new-build, we really didn’t know what to expect from a Realtor. The entire process was seamless, and after hearing stories from friends and family who didn’t have great Realtors, we realize that we are lucky to have found Reece. Andrew & Lisa