Five Things to Have Sorted Before You Make an Offer in Orillia or Oro-Medonte with Lora Fenn, Dominion Lending

Every spring I get the same phone call. Someone has found a house they love, the offer is going in tomorrow, and they are hoping I can wave a wand overnight. Sometimes I can. Often I am telling them something they would much rather have heard three weeks earlier.

Five things, none of them complicated, all of them worth doing before you fall for a place.

1. Get a real pre-approval, not a rate quote

A rate quote takes thirty seconds and means almost nothing. A real pre-approval means someone has looked at your income documents, pulled your credit, and confirmed what a lender will actually lend you.

The difference shows up the moment your offer is competing with someone else's. A seller can tell which buyers have done the work. So can their agent.

2. Know what happens when you switch jobs mid-search

A new job is exciting. It is also the single most common thing that quietly derails a purchase between pre-approval and closing.

Lenders want to see stable income, and a probation period can change everything. Moving to a role with commission or bonus pay changes it further. None of that means you cannot buy. It means we need to know before you sign anything, so we pick a lender who works with your situation instead of finding out at the worst possible moment.

3. Leave your credit alone

Between the pre-approval and the closing day, do not finance a car, do not open a store card for the appliance package, and do not move balances around to tidy things up. All of it moves your numbers, and lenders re-check before they fund.

Every one of these has cost someone a house. Buy the couch after you get the keys.

4. Understand what rural and waterfront properties need

This is the one that catches people around here. A place on a private road, on a well and septic, on a lake, or with a lot of acreage is not a straightforward file for every lender.

Some want a water potability test. Some want confirmation of year-round road access and who maintains the road. Some will not lend on certain seasonal properties at all. A well and septic inspection takes time to book.

None of this is a dealbreaker. It is a timeline problem, and timelines are solvable when you know about them early. Tell your agent and your mortgage person the moment a property is rural or on water, and build a realistic financing condition.

5. Budget for the costs that are not the down payment

The down payment gets all the attention. The closing costs are the part that surprises people.

Legal fees, land transfer tax, title insurance, an appraisal, a home inspection, and moving costs all land in the same few weeks. If the property is rural, add the well and septic inspection. If you are buying and selling at once, there may be a gap between the two closings that needs bridging.

A good rule is to have a cushion set aside beyond the down payment, and to ask for a specific estimate for your deal rather than a general number off the internet.