Introduction
Here’s the conversation I have more than any other with families in Markham.
They want to move up. They’ve outgrown their home. Their kids need their own rooms. The commute to hockey practice is taking 40 minutes when it should take 10. They know they need to move.
Then the market softens and they go quiet.
“We should wait,” they say. “The market is down. We’d be selling for less than we hoped.”
I understand why that feels right. It doesn’t look right on paper, but it feels right emotionally. Selling for less feels like losing.
So let me show you why, mathematically, a buyer’s market is often the single best time to move up.
The number that actually matters: the net cost to move up
Most people focus on two numbers: what they’ll sell for, and what they’ll pay. What they’re missing is the number that actually determines whether the move is affordable: the gap between those two.
That gap is your net cost to move up. And here’s what happens to it when the market moves.
In a hot market: You sell for $1.4M. You pay $2.1M on the purchase. Net cost to move up: $700K.
In a buyer’s market: You sell for $1.2M. You pay $1.6M on the purchase. Net cost to move up: $400K.
You ‘lost’ $200K on your sale price. But you saved $500K on your purchase. Your net cost to move up is $300K less in the softer market.
Read that again. The market that feels bad for sellers is often dramatically better for move-up buyers.
Why this works
When the market softens, prices drop across the board. Your current home is worth less. But so is the home you’re buying. And because you’re buying a more expensive property, the dollar value of that price correction is bigger on the purchase side than on the sale side.
The larger the gap between your current home and your next home, the more a buyer’s market works in your favour.
The bonus you don’t get in a hot market: protection clauses
When I was running buyers through multiple offer situations at the peak of the market, they were waiving financing conditions. They were waiving home inspection conditions. They were making blind decisions on $1.5M assets.
In today’s market? You get a home inspection. You get a financing condition. You get time to make a real decision.
That’s not nothing. That’s enormous.
The question I always ask
When a client tells me they want to wait for the market to heat up again, I ask them this:
If the market was hot and you could sell for $300K more, would you want that?
They say yes.
Then I show them that in that scenario, they’d also be paying $500K more on the purchase. With no conditions. In competition with multiple other buyers.
Suddenly the math looks different.
This isn’t a pitch. It’s arithmetic.
I’m not telling you to buy now because I want the commission. I’m telling you this because I’ve watched families wait two, three, four years for a “better” market and watch the net cost to move up get worse every time prices climb.
The market you’re in right now may be the best buying environment your family will see for a long time. Not because prices are falling. Because the gap is smaller, the conditions are fairer, and the protection clauses are back.
Run your own numbers. I’m happy to walk through them with you.
Ready to run your own numbers?
DM me the word NUMBERS and I’ll run your personal move-up math. No cost, no pressure.
