The HomeHappy BC Move-Up Buyer Strategy

Move-Up Questions We Actually Get Asked

Should I buy first or sell first?

The honest answer: it depends on which risk you can afford to carry, because each order carries a different one.

Sell first and you know exactly what you have to spend, but you risk being temporarily without a home if the right purchase doesn’t appear fast. Buy first and you never miss the dream house, but you risk owning two properties if your sale drags, and lenders will test whether you can carry both.

The market decides a lot of this for you. In a slower market, selling first is usually the safer play because your sale timeline is the uncertain one. In a hot market, a subject to sale offer on your purchase gets beaten by clean offers, which pushes people toward selling first anyway. We map your local conditions, your equity, and your qualifying room before you list or shop, so the order is a decision instead of an accident.

Can I use the equity in my current home for the down payment before it sells?

Yes, and there are two main tools, with one timing trick most people learn too late.

Bridge financing covers the gap when your purchase closes before your sale does. It’s short term, it’s routine, and lenders are comfortable with it, but nearly all of them require a firm sale on your current home first. Bridge financing gets you across a gap between two dates. It does not remove the need to sell.

The second tool is a line of credit secured against your current home, set up before you list. Once your home is on the market, most lenders won’t grant one. Arranged early, it gives you flexible access to your equity for a deposit or down payment without waiting for anything. This is one of the best reasons to talk to us months before the for sale sign goes up.

What does breaking my current mortgage actually cost?

It depends heavily on what kind of mortgage you have, and the difference can be enormous.

Variable rate mortgages typically charge three months’ interest, a knowable and usually manageable number. Fixed rate mortgages charge the greater of three months’ interest or the interest rate differential, and that second calculation is where the big banks’ posted rate trick described above can quietly inflate the bill by thousands.

Before you commit to anything, get the exact payout figure in writing from your current lender and let us check the math. Sometimes the penalty is small enough to ignore. Sometimes it changes the timing of the whole move. And if your mortgage is within about four months of maturity, waiting for the renewal window can make the penalty disappear entirely. Here’s the full breakdown of how penalties are calculated.

Is porting my mortgage ever the right move?

Sometimes, and we’ll tell you when. The section above is blunt about porting because the way banks sell it usually disappoints: the new money you need is priced separately, and the blended result often erases the benefit.

But porting genuinely earns its keep in one situation: when your existing rate is far below today’s market and your penalty to break would be large. Carrying that rate to the new property on your existing balance, even with new money priced at market on top, can beat breaking and starting fresh.

The point is that it’s arithmetic, not loyalty. We run the port scenario, the break and switch scenario, and the wait for maturity scenario side by side, and the winning column gets our recommendation. No lender’s convenience enters into it.

Do I have to qualify while still owning my current home?

If your current home hasn’t firmly sold when you apply, yes, lenders will count its full carrying costs alongside the new home’s, and that double load is where many move-up applications get squeezed.

A firm sale changes everything: the old payment drops out of your ratios and your qualifying room opens up. This is why the order of operations from the first question matters so much, and why we prefer to run your numbers both ways, with and without the sale, before you commit to anything. You’ll know exactly which offers you can safely write and under what conditions.

Could I keep my current home as a rental instead of selling?

Sometimes, and it’s worth an honest look before you assume either way.

The essentials: you’ll need to leave at least 20% equity in the current home once it becomes a rental, you’ll need the down payment for the new home from another source, and you’ll need to qualify carrying both mortgages, though lenders will count a portion of the expected rent in your favour. Whether the numbers work depends on your equity, your income, and local rents.

When it works, you keep a property that’s already growing and let a tenant carry much of it. When it doesn’t, stretching for it puts your new home at risk, and we’ll say so plainly. The tax side of owning a rental, including what happens when you eventually sell it, belongs with your accountant before you decide.

Do any of the first-time buyer perks apply to a move-up purchase?

The famous one doesn’t: the BC property transfer tax exemption for first time buyers is off the table once you’ve owned a home, so budget for the full tax on your next purchase. On an $900,000 home that’s a real line item, and it surprises people who skipped it the first time.

But two doors stay open. If your next home is newly built and will be your principal residence, BC’s newly built home exemption can eliminate the transfer tax up to $1.1 million in value, and that one has nothing to do with being a first time buyer. And insured purchases of new construction can access a 30 year amortization regardless of buyer status, which lowers the payment on the bigger mortgage a move-up usually involves. Both are worth checking before you decide between resale and new.