Calgary Answers · Buying · The Process

The Steps to Buying a Housein Calgary, in order

Eight steps get you from thinking about it to an accepted offer. Two of them are commonly done out of order, and that is where most of the avoidable stress comes from.

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The sequence, first conversation to accepted offer

  1. 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 →
  2. Get pre-approved. A real one, with documents, not a rate quote from a website.
  3. 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.
  4. Set criteria and turn on alerts. Community, type, must-haves, and the things you would trade away.
  5. View. In batches, in the same week, so you can compare while it is fresh.
  6. 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.
  7. Write the offer, with conditions. Price, possession date, deposit, what stays, and the conditions that protect you. Which conditions →
  8. 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.