The sequence, first conversation to accepted offer
- Work out what you actually want to spend. Not what a lender will approve — those are different numbers, and the gap between them is where people overextend. How much house can I afford →
- Get pre-approved. A real one, with documents, not a rate quote from a website.
- Choose your REALTOR® and sign representation. In Alberta this is designated agency — the individual REALTOR® you sign with represents you personally, and that is what obliges them to put your interests ahead of their own.
- Set criteria and turn on alerts. Community, type, must-haves, and the things you would trade away.
- View. In batches, in the same week, so you can compare while it is fresh.
- Research the specific home. Comparable sales, listing history, condo documents if it is a condo, anything the neighbourhood tells you that the listing does not.
- Write the offer, with conditions. Price, possession date, deposit, what stays, and the conditions that protect you. Which conditions →
- Negotiate to an accepted offer. Usually a counter or two, occasionally competing offers.
Where the order genuinely matters
Steps 1 and 2 belong before step 5, and they are the two people skip. Viewing homes before you know your number is how buyers fall for something they cannot write on, or waste a spring looking one bracket too low.
Step 6 is the one nobody talks about and the one that decides whether you overpay. Anybody can open a door. Knowing what the last four comparable sales on that street actually closed at, before you name a price, is the work.
Sold prices and property history require a free registered account to view — that is an Alberta MLS® data licensing rule, not a paywall.
And then it changes character
Once the offer is accepted you are on the contract's clock rather than your own: the condition period, then removal of conditions, then a possession date you negotiated. That whole second half — lawyer, financing, Real Property Report, closing costs, possession day — is set out step by step in our Alberta closing timeline guide.
After the offer is accepted, in order
- Deliver the deposit as the contract requires.
- Work through your conditions — inspection, financing, condo documents — and satisfy or waive each in writing by its deadline. Miss a deadline and the contract’s own terms decide what happens next. Which conditions →
- Instruct a real estate lawyer. In Alberta your lawyer reviews title, the Real Property Report on a non-condo property, and the statement of adjustments, and registers the transfer at Land Titles.
- Arrange home insurance from possession day; your lender will want proof before it releases the mortgage funds.
- Sign at the lawyer’s office and bring the balance of your down payment and closing costs.
- Set up utilities for the possession date, then take possession once funds and title have moved.
Each of those, with the timings that actually apply, is in the Alberta closing timeline guide.
The cash you need, and when it is due
Three amounts come out of your own pocket, and they arrive in this order:
- The deposit, due shortly after your offer is accepted, on the amount and timing written into the contract. It is held in trust — by a brokerage, a lawyer or, on new construction, the builder, as the contract says — and is credited to the purchase at closing. (RECA on deposits.)
- The down payment. The minimum depends on the purchase price under federal mortgage-insurance rules; lenders apply them to your file. Current down payment tiers → First-time buyers can draw on the FHSA and the RRSP Home Buyers’ Plan — what each allows.
- Closing costs, paid in cash on top: legal fees, title insurance, adjustments, and Land Titles registration at $50 plus $5 per $5,000 of value. Alberta has no land transfer tax. What closing costs include →
Before you apply for pre-approval, order your credit report from both Equifax and TransUnion — each will send one free, and they can hold different information. Errors are far easier to fix before a lender sees them. (Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.)