Buying Up: Selling a home of lower value and purchasing a home of higher value or selling a smaller home and buying a larger home.

There are many reasons why people “buy up”, the most common of which is a growing or aging family that requires more space to live. This scenario occurs for thousands of families every year in Calgary and continues to happen no matter what type of real estate market exists. According to the National Association of REALTORS ® a typical family changes homes, on average, every five to seven years.

Buyers’ Market: A market in which there are significantly more sellers than buyers giving the negotiating advantage to the buyer. Normally, prices decline in a buyer’s market. Calgary is currently in a Buyers’ Market. In a typical buyers’ market, homes with higher values tend to decrease in price by a greater dollar value over a given time period.

EXAMPLE:
Community A has a typical home selling for $650,000 in March of 2015 and in March of 2016 the same home has dropped in value by about 5% to $618,000. Community B, on the other hand has a typical home selling for $425,000 in March of 2015 and $422,000 in March of 2016. This is very comparable to what is currently happening in communities around Calgary in today’s buyers’ market.

Let’s say community A could be a house in Hamptons and Community B may be a house in MacEwan Glen.
A family in MacEwan has decided to move to the Hamptons to a bigger house. Had they made the move to that house in March, 2015, they would have sold their MacEwan house for $425,000 and purchased the Hamptons house for $650,000. The difference in price would have been $225,000.
Now let’s look at the same purchase in March, 2016. The MacEwan family is selling their house for $422,000 and buying the Hamptons house for $618,000. The difference in price is now $196,000. Even after accepting the lower price on the sale of their MacEwan house, there was a $29,000 difference in their favour on the purchase. Add $12,000 in interest that will not be paid on that amount over the 25 years of the mortgage and the MacEwan family saves $41,000 through buying up in this buyers’ market.

For more ways to save money in the current market, contact me directly.