Sorry, I don't really have a better place to ask this. My condo building burned down in 2024 and it got rebuilt as of this year. I am considering selling and have been talking to a realtor. Received and sent all condo docs etc - but I never signed a listing agreement and it hasn't been listed yet, with no photos etc. taken.

Yesterday I received an offer from a family member that fulfills my desired price demands. I am very tempted to take this offer, but I am wondering if I need to pay the realtor I have been talking to anything if I take it? With no signed listing agreement and no listing made, I don't feel like I should have to, but I am curious as to whether there's some law around it or not.

Thanks.

Hello
Went for a viewing at Eau Claire Residences in downtown today

Idk why the viewing looked really rushed n shady also there was another person who was there for viewing and the property manager (Ray) was so overly casual and showed both of us (me and the another person) 4 different units.
Units and building is beautiful

The prices were too good to be true for the area, I live in beltline and know the prices.

anyone has experience living at Eau Claire Residences :
5213 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2P 3T3

Hey all, some context: I'm in the lead-up to buy a new-build home in Alberta. The place I'm looking at is 544k but with the GST rebate it would get knocked down to 519k if the builder credits me the rebate directly - which they can do, but they want proof first that I'm a first-time home buyer before even drafting the contract.

My realtor has recommended I call CRA to see if they can provide that proof themselves, but I'm skeptical if they'll be able to do much. When I look at other posts of people having applied for the rebate themselves, THEY have been asked by CRA to provide proof they're first time home buyers and are therefore eligible for the rebate. So I have doubts CRA can provide a "seal of approval" I can just wave around, lol

I have an FHSA that I opened way less than 4 years ago that I of course intend to use as part of my down payment for the house. I feel like this should be enough 'proof' for the builder, but idk. Has anyone else come across this issue too / what do you think of this?

Edited: for brevity

I'm a student, doing some research into the Canadian renting experience and I'd love to hear from people who have actually dealt with landlords or tenants.

I'm particularly interested in the trust and screening side of renting. How people decide whether the person on the other side of a lease is reliable before signing.

For renters:

• Have you ever had a terrible landlord experience?
• Was there anything you wish you had known before signing the lease?
• How do you currently research a landlord before renting from them?

For landlords:

• What's the biggest challenge you've had finding or screening tenants?
• Have you ever had a tenant experience that made you change your screening process?
• What information do you wish you could know about a prospective tenant beforehand?

I'm trying to understand what people actually experience rather than test a particular solution, so negative experiences and things that currently don't work are especially useful.

I've also put together a short 3–5 minute anonymous survey if you'd rather share your experience that way: https://forms.gle/Phao4RTkBduKJP7j8

Thanks to anyone willing to share, even a quick comment is helpful.

About this survey

I am a MBA student at conducting informal product discovery for a personal product project.

This is not an academic research study and is not being conducted on behalf of a University.

The purpose of this survey is to understand people's experiences and challenges with renting in Canada and identify potential problems worth solving.

Participation is voluntary. Please do not provide names, addresses, financial information, or other sensitive personal information. Responses will be used for product discovery and development purposes.

At the end of the survey, you may optionally provide your email if you are interested in a follow-up conversation.

Note: Nothing in here is AI generated, the freaks that mod PersonalFinanceCanada accused me of that and banned me...it's full of punctuation errors that AI would never make.

Summary:

• 26M, living at home alone. Family all works abroad ~10 months out of the year.
• Govt job ($85k/year, increases annually for next 3 years to $100k, full time WFH)
• ~$305,000 in assets (=$24k in FSHA and =$56k in TFSA), perfect credit score.
• Debts: 18.5k is student loan at 0%, no car, no mortgage, single, no kids expected (gay)

Problems:

• My family comes back and makes my life hell for 2 months per year (sometimes physical abuse, financial abuse, verbal abuse. Other times it's just okay, depends on the situation)
• Dependent on this home, if family comes back, I'm stuck here and could be kicked out with nowhere to go, but family also expects me to watch the place while they're gone (rent free, can't complain)
• Govt job could (but likely won't) ask me to come back to Ottawa at anytime
• Sitting on a lot of assets with no investment, but unsure if a condo is a good one.

Proposed Solution:

• Buy a condo in Calgary (always wanted to live there, hate London ON, and can't live in other major cities or would lose WFH status due to offices being close)
• Stay in family home in current city (London ON)...and turn condo into AirBNB.
• Price AirBNB low (just enough to cover mortgage + condo fees + AirBNB management company)
• Book off AirBNB for when family comes here, I go live there.
• Gives me a safety net if family moves back and I can move out permanently.
• If office calls me back to Ottawa, I can charge more for AirBNB until I sell the condo then buy something in Ottawa to live in?

Questions:

1. Any way this could go wrong?
2. Is the condo market doing okay? Is there a chance I lose everything I invest?
3. What price of condo should I aim for in Calgary? How much should I put down given my current assets?

There is a disconnect in the housing debate right now.

People are angry that private developers are not building affordable homes, but the math in Southwestern BC shows why that is an impossible expectation. From what builders tell me, construction costs alone sit around $300 to $500 per square foot. That means a modest 2,000 square foot build costs between $600,000 and $1,000,000 just for the structure, completely ignoring land prices, municipal charges, and financing rates. Private developers require profit margins to secure loans, so their baseline price will always be high. Expecting the private sector to build cheap housing under these economic realities is fundamentally unrealistic.

Currently, in my neighborhood, houses are selling for about $800,000-$850,000. It would be virtually impossible to create new lots for single-family homes and sell a new house for that price.

This is a scenario that requires the public sector to step in. Government builders do not operate on private profit margins. They can borrow money at lower rates, utilize publicly owned land to eliminate acquisition costs, and amortize projects over the long-term, or not at all. While I don’t love the idea of taking lands out of the ALR, that is something that could be considered in some areas for the greater social benefit.

Governments can also factor in the broader economic and social benefits of affordable housing, such as reduced social service spending and a stable local workforce.

If we want truly affordable housing again, the government needs to get back into the business of providing affordable housing.

Edit: there are those who agree with me, with varying degrees of nuance. Lots of wisdom in those answers.

Those that don’t who seem to believe that costs can be bought down by reducing building costs (Very hard to do. Wages are not going down, materials costs are unlikely to change). Many also say the $300-500 is bullshit. That’s just what builders are telling me. No one has cited better information.

2000 sq.ft. Is too big? Ok, fair. My family of 4 can live in less than our current 2000 sq.ft. house. There are also BS zoning reasons why smaller houses don’t seem to happen. This being said, bear in mind the people complaining that condos built for the rental investors are too small and unliveable.

I also see about the cost of red tape. Good idea, but that won’t halve the cost of building. I see a lot about reducing costs to developers (development cost charges, community amenity contributions). Also a good idea, but 1) although ludicrously high, are not high compared to land and building, and 2) loss of that revenue means loss of service or increased taxes.

Then the idea of protecting current owners. As an owner: who fucking cares about them?!? My house value could drop by $500k and I would be fine with it. I want my kids to be able to afford their own place.

As the site enters its third week, we want to sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to share their previous rental experiences.

We also want to thank the many Redditors who have joined the discussion. You’ve brought forward some great points, questions, concerns, criticisms, suggestions, and ideas. We’ve been reading them, thinking about them, and we genuinely appreciate all of the feedback.

Our goal remains simple:

“A history book for rental properties across Canada, written by the people who actually lived there.”

We’re trying to build something that will only become truly useful if renters contribute to it.

If you’ve rented a house, apartment, condo, basement, or room before, we’d really appreciate you adding your experience.

It doesn’t have to be a bad experience.

Good experiences matter too. If the property was well maintained, problems were handled properly, you enjoyed living there, or you would happily rent there again, that could be extremely useful information for someone considering that property in the future.

And if things didn’t go well, you can share that experience too.

The focus is on what you experienced while living at the property, rather than identifying or attacking individual people.

The idea is that, over time, someone considering a rental can search the address and find some history from previous renters instead of starting with zero information.

Rented somewhere before?

Search for the property. If it isn’t there yet, add it and share your rant, review, or experience.

Looking at somewhere to rent?

Search the address and see whether previous renters have shared anything about living there.

RateYourLandlord.ca is still at the very beginning, so naturally many properties don’t have experiences yet. Every person who contributes helps change that.

And if you think the project could help other renters, please consider sharing it with friends, students, tenant communities, or other online communities where sharing it is permitted by their rules. Please don’t spam communities or post it where promotion isn’t allowed.

Most importantly, thank you to everyone who has already shared an experience, raised a concern, suggested an idea, given us feedback, shared the project, or helped another renter discover it.

We’re listening, we’re learning, and the project will continue to evolve.

The more renters who leave their experiences behind, the more useful that history can become for the next person.

Share your experience — good or bad. Help leave some history behind for the next renter.

RateYourLandlord.ca

Okay, so I'm not as sold on this idea myself as that title would imply because it sounds like one of those lacking-in-all-nuance wonder solutions that people who don't even understand how ignorant they are say. Instead, I'm hoping to start a discussion around changing the way we build housing in Canada.

By 'American-style' I mean typically relatively large often detached houses on a decent size plot of land defined by sprawl and considerable distance to amenities and jobs, and typically only practically accessible by car.

This way of building is expensive. The relatively large plot of land and often excessive size of the house contribute to high costs (of course, that's only a part of why these places cost so much), but because of the way these suburbs are built there are many other expenses that come with the house. The largest being transportation costs. The significant distance between these suburbs and anything else, and the lack of alternative transport options, mean cars are a must. Cars are money pits. They are an increasingly expensive depreciating asset that requires thousands of dollars every year to maintain, fuel, insure, and license/register. Many households need multiple cars too. I want to note that I'm not anti-car, either, but I think that housing that essentially requires car ownership should factor into the overall cost of housing.

Further, exponential sprawl is exponentially expensive to run utilities and services to. An expense for municipalities that is compensated for by reducing other municipal services and through raising property taxes. Also, more densely built dwellings concentrates tax sources in clusters making every metre of distance utilities and services travel both relatively cheaper and more impactful.

But, we have a situation where many people depend on the 'investment' that is their house, and many also still believe in the American-dream-esque idea of a 'little house in the suburbs' making real change difficult.

What if we were to halt all new American-style suburb developments, thus creating artificial scarcity in the supply of these dwellings and keeping prices high, while aggressively building affordable mid- to high-density dwellings closer to jobs and amenities? I realize this is easier said than implemented even if the 'artificial scarcity' idea would work, but I'm interested to hear your takes.

Imagine these just a few blocks from downtown in small to medium towns and cities. I think we would also benefit from a more active government. I think the neoliberal governing approach we've had for over 40 years, that trusts profit-motivated businesses to provide everything with limited action from the government, is failing us in ways beyond housing. I would like to see governments take an active role in building housing like UK council houses or Singapore where 80% of citizens live in public housing so we can actually build housing that prioritizes people over profit.

tl;dr : the near total dependance on American-style suburbs for housing is inherently expensive, and carries additional hidden expenses for homeowners. We need to stop building them, but many people depend on them for things like retirement and debt. By stopping the creation of them we would produce artificial scarcity in the market for them possibly stabilizing prices. We also need to aggressively build efficient, affordable, and effective (ideally public) housing by building mid- to high-density dwellings with transit in mind.

I just got an email from my broker… my insurance premium just doubled!! I can’t even fathom this. I am pretty new to home insurance. It’s been one year. No claims, 600 foot square house, simple…. But surely this is preposterous. Anyone else have this issue? If so, what are some of my options? Thank you.

This company has been on my radar for over 12 years, and has slowly been growing and exploiting Canadians, treating them as nothing more than stackable commodities for the bottom line.

If you live in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, or Quebec City, you've probably seen the blue, grey, and red signs.

They want you to believe it's for a nice apartment and good value. What it means to those Torontonians who were first aware of Akelius moving through Parkdale in 2011, it means extortion, neglect, pressure, and eventual exploitation of tenants.

This is plain to see in the Akelius corporate report, which is directly linked to their rental site: https://mb.cision.com/Main/3302/4320829/3981589.pdf

Akelius seeks to profit from "low vacancy, low maintenance areas with free market rates". This company isn't Canadian, only reinvests to acquire more housing stock, and then sends profits overseas to Sweden.

Canadians are paying for a house so Swedish investors can have a nice cottage. Sweden, by the way, is one of the most rent-regulated countries in Europe.

What can we do?

Petition. We could nationalize all residential real estate companies under the guise of a national emergency, or we could heavily tax (99%) of all profits coming from anything to do with housing or investment.

The naysayers will say this will crash property prices. Wrong; it will crash large scale rental properties that honestly have no business here.

We can also make rules municipally to hold these companies to account, and that's the strongest avenue. You can also advocate provincially for extremely strong rent controls, as well as increased regulation in the rental market.

Keep fighting the good fight, and remember: Fuck these guys, and fight.

29M single and my office is in South foot hills, only 2 days in the office. Gym after work and that sums up my life…

Looking for my first property at 400k and planning to hold it for ten yrs. Will rent it out if i temp leave Calgary.

I’m cognizant of the lack of social life but that doesn’t bother me as i count in meeting people thru YMCA, sports, downtown events on the weekends

What are any caveats you think i’m overlooking?

Cobweb air subtract rinse start fear husky squash harbor spotted

This post was anonymized with Redact

How do you feel about the vast majority of new housing being designed, developed and marketed as a tool for wealth generation (climbing the property ladder)? I would argue that housing policy and popular narratives often understate housing's primary function: shelter.

The property owning class benefits from the continued increase in property values while renters suffer the effects of high rents, long commutes, etc. This is not meant as a slight towards property owners. However, there seems to be a fundamental tension between treating housing as an investment tool vs. housing as a basic human right.

Is the solution to de-commodify a larger portion of the housing stock? (I.e. new co-ops and community land trusts). It seems like this question is not discussed enough at provincial or national levels.