Guide
Most first-time buyers are not confused about what a house is. They are confused about the order things happen in, and about which numbers they need on hand at which moment. This is the sequence, and the costs that tend to catch people out.
The deposit accompanies your offer, usually within 24 hours of acceptance, and is held in the listing brokerage trust account. It is credited toward your purchase, but you need it liquid immediately, not on closing day.
The down payment is the larger amount, and it is due at closing through your lawyer. In Ontario the minimum is five percent up to $500,000, ten percent on the portion between $500,000 and $1.5 million, and twenty percent above that. Under twenty percent, mortgage default insurance applies and gets added to your mortgage.
A pre-approval tells you your real number and holds a rate for a period while you look. It is not a guarantee: the lender still has to approve the specific property, which is why a financing condition matters even with a pre-approval in hand.
Ontario charges land transfer tax on closing, and it is one of the larger closing costs. First-time buyers qualify for a provincial rebate of up to $4,000. If you buy inside the City of Toronto there is a second municipal land transfer tax, with its own first-time buyer rebate. Oakville and the rest of Halton do not have the municipal tax, only the provincial one.
Budget for legal fees and disbursements, title insurance, a home inspection, and adjustments for property tax or utilities the seller has prepaid. A common rule of thumb is one and a half to four percent of the purchase price beyond your down payment, and it lands toward the higher end inside Toronto because of the second land transfer tax.
Pre-approval, then search, then offer with conditions, then fulfil the conditions such as financing and inspection within the agreed window, then firm up, then closing. The stressful part is almost always the condition window, which is why it should be long enough to actually do the work.
Plan for roughly one and a half to four percent of the price in closing costs, plus your deposit being available immediately when your offer is accepted. Inside Toronto, budget toward the higher end because of the municipal land transfer tax.
You get the Ontario rebate of up to $4,000 if you qualify. The additional municipal land transfer tax and its separate rebate apply only within the City of Toronto, not Oakville or the rest of Halton.
Sometimes it is what the situation demands, but it is a genuine transfer of risk onto you, and you should understand exactly what you are giving up before doing it. I will tell you plainly what a specific waiver exposes you to rather than push you into it.
Yes. The whole process, including the paperwork walkthrough, can happen in Mandarin or English.
If you are somewhere in this sequence and not sure what comes next, that is a short conversation and it costs nothing.