It depends mainly on four things: how saleable your current home is, how hard the replacement will be to find, whether your financing lets you carry both, and what supply looks like in the segment you are buying into.
As a rule: sell first when your current home is unusual, high-priced for its community, or slow-moving, and when carrying two properties is not possible. Buy first when your home is a common, well-priced property that will sell readily and what you want is genuinely hard to find.
The decision table
The sequence follows from four things: how saleable your current home is, how hard the replacement will be to find, what your financing allows, and what the market is doing. Work through them in that order.
| Sell first if… | Buy first if… | Consider subject-to-sale if… |
|---|---|---|
| Your home is unusual, high-priced for its community, or slow-moving | Your home is a common, well-priced property in a busy community | Your home is saleable but you cannot carry two properties |
| You cannot carry two mortgages, even briefly | You have the financing capacity to carry both, or bridge financing arranged | The replacement home has been sitting on the market |
| You would be forced to accept a low offer under time pressure | What you want is rare and you would regret missing it | You are in a balanced or slower market, not a competitive one |
| You are comfortable renting or staying with family in between | You need specific features — a suite, a shop, a particular street | You are willing to accept a weaker negotiating position on price |
The two risks, stated plainly
There is no risk-free sequence. There are two risks and you are choosing which one to carry.
| Buy first — the risk | Sell first — the risk |
|---|---|
| You own two homes and carry two sets of payments for an unknown period | You have sold and have nowhere to go |
| Pressure to accept a lower offer on the home you still own | Pressure to buy something you do not really want |
| Bridge financing costs, if you can arrange it at all | Moving twice, and storage |
| Worst case: a long, expensive overlap | Worst case: a rushed purchase you regret for years |
Which risk is worse depends on the market. In a market with plenty of inventory, being without a home is uncomfortable but survivable. When inventory is thin in the segment you want, selling first can leave you genuinely stuck. Check months of supply for the property type and community you are buying into before you decide — not the citywide figure.
Financing is usually what settles it
- Can you carry both? Ask a lender before you plan, not after. The answer is a fact about your file, not a judgement call.
- Bridge financing lets you use equity from a sale that has not closed yet to complete a purchase. It generally requires a firm, unconditional sale on your existing home — a conditional sale is usually not enough. See how bridge financing works in Calgary.
- The deposit. Your deposit on the new home is needed well before your sale proceeds arrive. That cash has to come from somewhere.
- Possession dates. Aligning them is the cheapest solution and the hardest to arrange, because it needs both other parties to cooperate.
Subject-to-sale offers
An offer conditional on selling your current home lets you buy before you have sold. It also weakens your position, because the seller is being asked to take their home off the market on a condition you do not control.
They work best when the property you want has been sitting, and poorly when you are competing. Most sellers who accept one will keep marketing the property and reserve the right to require you to remove your condition on short notice if another offer arrives — so understand exactly what you are agreeing to before you rely on it. See how subject-to-sale offers work here.
From Crystal’s desk
In practice this decision is made by the current home more than by the new one. If your existing property is straightforward and priced properly, buying first is a manageable risk. If it is unusual, it is not. The houses that sit are the ones with something specific about them — an odd layout, a location issue, a price at the top of the community.
The scenario I most want to avoid for a client is selling first with nowhere to go in a segment with thin supply. Rushing into a purchase because your possession date is coming is how people end up in a house they resent, and that mistake is far more expensive than a couple of months of overlap.
How to work it out in order
- Get a realistic price and a realistic timeline for your current home.
- Ask a lender what you can carry, and whether bridge financing is available on your file.
- Look at actual supply in the segment you are buying into — property type, price band and community, not the citywide number.
- Decide which of the two risks you can genuinely absorb.
- Only then choose the sequence, and build the dates around it.
Doing both at once?
Buying and selling in the same move is the most common thing we handle and the easiest to get wrong. We will map the sequence, the dates and the financing before anything is listed.
Next questions
Sources & method
This page describes how the sequence decision is made in Alberta residential transactions. It is general information, not legal or financing advice.
- Bridge financing availability and terms are set by individual lenders and depend on your file. Confirm with your lender before planning around it.
- Contract terms — including how a subject-to-sale condition can be removed — are negotiated per transaction. Read what you sign.
- Our full guide to buying and selling at the same time.