Renting whilst buying
 

I know a fair few people have bought houses before arriving or maybe have taken short trips prior to arriving to this end - we arent in the position to do that from NZ. However, we dont want to be staying in a hotel/motel for long and will need to rent we assume.

We will be heading for Halifax/Dartmouth and I have had a little look for rentals and they all seem to be 1 year lease etc...........not to mention not cheap, but of course you get what you pay for!

Any ideas? And how long is the house buying process in general?? In NZ we can buy in 3-6 weeks depending in the upward chain, but in the UK our sales always seemed to be 3 months minimum.

Thanks, Rachel

Re: Renting whilst buying
 

Our experience:

We too had to rent when we landed here in Ontario. Again, as you say, most landlords wanted at least 1 years rent and we had to turn down a lot of good rentals because we didn't want to be locked into this timeframe or this area and needed to be flexible.

We persevered however and found that some landlords are willing to give flexible leases of 6 months and some will go as low as three months but want the money up front. We got one for 6 months with the option to extend on a monthly basis after that.

However, at the end of the 6 month period our landlord unexpectedly decided to sell his rental home and gave us 60 days notice to quit. As you can imagine we panicked slightly and had to make a quick decision as to whether to go home or take the risk and put down a deposit on a property of our own. We wondered, like you, if the turnaround time for buying would be more than the 60 days we had to play with. We looked at over 20 properties in the space of about 10 days and put down an offer on one that ticked most (but not all) of the boxes. The deal was done and the property ours within 30 days.

We're now in the new home and it's so much better when you know the monthly payments are going towards your own mortgage.

So yes, you can get a short term lease if you look around and yes, you can look, buy and move into a bought house within a short period also.

There is an ironic twist in the tale which smacks nicely of the concept of universal Karma:

The landlord who tried to turf us out after 6 months (when he wanted 1 year in the first place :confused:) turned down an offer we made on the rental to buy. He said it was too little. We subsequently bought the new house and 1 week later he reconsidered the offer we made and said he would sell it to us. We gleefully informed him that we had purchased another house and tough Banana. His rental still hasn't sold - in fact, it's the only one out of 6 homes in our area that haven't.

Isn't Karma wonderful. ;)

Re: Renting whilst buying
 

It's quite possible to see, buy and move into a house within two weeks if the owners are ready to move (or already left)!

Once an offer is accepted a contract is drawn up there and then, which is usually subject to certain conditions like satisfactory house inspection etc and which has an agreed time-frame, and Robert-is-the-brother-of-your-father! :D

Re: Renting whilst buying
 

As with madmac when I first tried looking for a rental I was up against a barrier of 12 month leases and wanted to avoid these as if the house of my dreams came up we would have to let it go if the rental period wasnt up.

We have been really lucky and are renting off a family friend who wants to help us and has said that we can go month by month.

Need some luck after all the house selling stress

Re: Renting whilst buying
 

The shortest rental my husband's company could find when we first arrived in Halifax was for 6 months. One problem was we had children so needed at least 3 bedrooms. The other problem is that Halifax is a university town so many of the rentals in Halifax itself are geared to students. Not sure which hospital your husband will be working at, but it might be easier to find something in Dartmouth and to commute by ferry or drive across the bridge. You might find http://halifax.kijiji.ca/ useful, as well as the classified section of The Chronicle Herald http://www.herald.ns.ca/classifieds/rentals.html
It might also be worth looking at www.premieresuites.com
My OH has a new assistant at work who has just arrived from Hawaii with his wife and 3 young children. It's not perfect but they have been staying at Premiere suites in Dartmouth for a month, and it gave them time to look around and find something more suitable - they will be based in Corwallis and have found it almost impossible to find anything to rent there, as most of the rental properties are geared to the tourist market this time of year.