Hey,

As your aware, I'm going to be looking for a home sooner or later.

What kind of costs will I be looking at? Not prices, just items I need to be prepared for. I have alot on a spreadsheet at home, but not 100% on what to expect.

I'm hoping for the place to be on Municipal Water/Sewer.

lawyer fees which can also include:
-property taxes (reimbursement for taxes paid by previous owner)
-if it's oil heat you'll probably have to buy any oil in the tank(full tank)
-deed transfer tax
you may be required to have the lot surveyed, that depends on the bank your dealing with

Like Dr said

-Lawyer Fees: Generally around 900-1300.00 in total.
-Propery Taxes: 1.5% of the cost of your home in the HRM area.
-CMHC will be put on your mortgage anyways which is going to be "around" 5000.00 unless you have a 20% downpayment. Most financers put this on automatically but review your financial contract prior to ensure this otherwise they may ask for that fee at closing.

Power and water, etc is very minimal to the above. I'll list the nickel and dime items anyways

Power 40.00
Water: still havent gotten a bill yet but it's cheap
Eastlink: free when moving they say they charge per jack to be installed. Personally I installed my own.
And don't firget your moving truck. I always gotten my best deals with Uhaul. Ends up being around 100-120 I believe with a dolly and insurance on the truck. And remember you have to top it off.

Also if you are buying a new home from a contractor you can recieve a 1500.00 rebate from them. This can be utilized in your closing costs.

Also if you refer to the access nova scotia site there is also an available grant for 7000.00 for new homes. But if you go this route make sure you check when the building permit is because the date of the building permit pertains to the date of the rebate.

Just some tips as well.

Mine was only like $450 but I got a deal when using the lawyer that my Realtor used.



That amount drops depending on the size of your down-payment as well. So if you have 10% you'll be paying much less and I think with my 15% down it only came to like $500 or something? I ended up overestimating on closing costs and actually could have put 20% down which makes me mad knowing that I "wasted" $500 but I guess it was better to be safe than sorry.



I think our water bill was $140 for 4 months and that's split 3 ways so ya, it's pretty negligible.

I had the same p[roblem with my downpayment. Ended up overbudgeting so much and ended up having another 5k in the bank... If I knew better I would have locked that in with my RRSP for the homebuyers rrsp.

If you're still looking in this post. I figure I would put in my first power bills information.

Dec 09
Energy Used 2938
No Days 58
Kwh/Day 50.7

I'm on a budget plan but I generally just dumped a few hundred bucks in a little while ago.

Currently my budget plan is 175.00/Month with 2 dependants.

First Bill actual total = 413.76

Not too bad..

I'm taking it you have Electric heating?

Yep and Electric HW

the last apt I moved out of was like that. Winter time was nasty, especially with leaky windows and an outside door.

I didn't like the idea of thinking of money every time I turned on the tap to get hot water or taking a shower. There's only so much you can do to reduce it.

Hence the move to a much bigger place with H and HW included. 20 min showers if we want! (notice I implied two people showers lol) yes the rent is more but when we did the math - we are saving 50+ per month over our last place that was 1/2 the square footage.

but alas - its not a house and it doesn't belong to us. So its either OIL or Electric in most applications. Personally where possible, I would prefer a place that also does wood heat - a fireplace would suffice if it had an insert for efficiency.

one more thing....

Lowering the eastlink bill. I managed that by ALOT from what I was paying. I got an aliant flyer in the mail. It was a better deal but I also knew I didnt want alaint, highspeed sucks compared to eastlink. But eastlink didnt know my train of thought so...

I called up and told them I wanted to cancel. We just got on a deal as there was a promotion and already had about 30 bucks knocked off for 12 mo. Didnt matter.

When the 5 min call was done, I got 88 bucks+ tax for 12 mo. The bill in total came to 105 - quite the diff from (157 originally) - 130 after the first deal.

When I looked at the bill they had discounts on pretty much everything and a note showing it would be for 12mo.

When that ends, I will call and do it all over again.