How old is this? Average house prices in Ottawa were $200K, they are much higher now.
This one, I am completely pulling out of my butt, but stay with me on this. Let’s assume you can sell your house for $200,000.00 (which is about average for Ottawa these days I think).
So if I am going to sell my house, I need an agent, which is going to take 5% (if not more) of my selling price for themselves. OK, so that is going to cost you $10,000.00 on this house. Yes, you can try to sell it yourself, more power to you if you can, but to quote my favourite line from Casablanca:
I beg of you, Monsieur, watch yourself. Be on guard. This place is full of vultures…
All right, we have sold the house, good for us. Now, I am over 40 as are most of my friends, so having them come over and rupture themselves to help me move, those days are gone. How much to move? The last time I moved, it cost $2500, so let’s just use $3000 as a base (unless you enjoy watching your valuables being destroyed, by “Big Caj’s Smash and Bash Movers”).
So far this isn’t as expensive as renovating. Oh, land transfer taxes for this house would be $1725.00. Home inspection?
Oh, you are buying a new home, aren’t you? GST? What? Yup, 7% more, or $14000.00 on our new home (assuming it costs the SAME as our OLD home). Gulp! But I can get a rebate of 2.52% on that! Oh, ok, so you owe $9000.00 instead.
Oh and remember our friends the vultures lawyers, they get their cut too. How much? About another $500 on top.
Let’s leave out some other stuff, that I would include like Incidental costs (packing costs, meals ordered in because of packing, time spent packing, etc.,). New furniture for the new house (can’t have old furniture in a new house), turning off and on all of your utilities, changing your phone number, and the like (but if you are doing this calculation, you SHOULD research this, I am just being lazy).
Hey, this is getting expensive, what’s the total on this? Let’s look at that tomorrow
Good idea! A good budgeting idea, to put away maintenance costs.
–C8j
Big Cajun: IMHO, you shouldn’t move just because lot of maintenance need to be done. Actually, I am in the same boat as you. 15 year old house. Definitely needs a new roof this year. Need to replace at least 2 windows. Pretty soon, probably the furnace. I think you should set aside 1% of the house value for maintenance every year. Some years you won’t spend that much, but sooner or later there will be a big maintenance bill.
The average selling price of a house in Ottawa is now $239,000….and that is for nothing special at all. 30 year old semi’s are pulling in just under $200,000 and sometimes more.
And if you are buying a NEW house, don’t forget the cost of fencing, a deck or patio, landscaping, driveway paving, and all those hidden extra costs builders like to put in. And of course, there is the “new house, new stuff” problem which is the fact that you will want nice new shiny things to put in your nice new shiny house. And then you have to paint it, unless you are a fan of builder beige. We ended up moving from our last house to a new house after doing a very similar analysis. Ours had more to do with space (finishing the basement etc) than with general maintenance but we decided that the cost would be about the same to renovate as to move and we ended up with a house that is twice as big with a huge yard in a great neighbourhood.
Told you folks I was being conservative. I don’t think I could buy a dog house in South Ottawa for less than $200,000
–c8j