This comes up in almost every move up and almost every downsize. You own a home, you want a different one, and the order decides how much risk you carry. Most advice online answers it as a personality test, nerve against flexibility. The useful answer is narrower. Work out which side of your move sits in the tighter market, then count the days honestly.
Your two sides are rarely in the same market
The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board measures balance with the sales to active listings ratio, and its September 2026 release says a balanced market is typically a ratio between 12 and 20 per cent. Below that band sellers wait, above it buyers compete, and the board says the region has spent most of two years in a buyer's market.
That regional number hides what matters to you. Calculated from the sales and active listing counts in the board's September 2026 package, Langley detached ran 64 sales against 449 active listings, about 14 per cent. Langley townhouses ran 61 against 283, about 22 per cent, above the balanced band. Langley apartments came in about 16 per cent. In White Rock and South Surrey, detached ran 60 sales against 600 active listings, about 10 per cent, below the band, with townhouses about 17 and apartments about 14.
So the answer changes with the direction of the move. A Langley owner selling a townhouse and buying a detached home is selling the tightest segment in either market and buying one of the loosest, and can take some risk. A White Rock or South Surrey owner selling detached to buy a Langley townhouse has the hard half on the selling side and competition on the buying side, and should not be carrying an unconditional purchase.
What a falling market does to the gap
Prices have fallen on both sides, which is easy to forget when you look only at your own sale. What matters in a move is the spread. In Langley, the September benchmark was $1.471M for detached and $802,600 for a townhouse, a gap of $668,500. A year earlier those benchmarks were $1.577M and $839,800, a gap of $736,700. The step up costs $68,200 less than in September 2025, even though the townhouse sells for less. Waiting has worked in favour of the move up buyer.
Downsizing runs the other way. In White Rock and South Surrey the detached benchmark was $1.613M and the apartment benchmark $544,400, leaving $1.068M. A year earlier the two figures were $1.741M and $589,800, leaving $1.152M. A downsizer keeps $83,500 less than last September. Delay has been expensive on that move, and adding more of it to the sale side is what to avoid.
Count the days properly
Across the Fraser Valley in September, a detached home took 45 days to sell on average, a townhouse 38, a condo 46. Those averages cover homes that sold. The listings still sitting are not in them, and in a segment running at one sale for every ten active listings there are plenty.
Then add the rest. A subject period of a week or two, then a completion usually 30 to 60 days after the contract goes firm. From listing day to money in your account, three months is a normal run. If your plan only works on a 30 day sale, it is not a plan.
Selling first
Selling first buys price certainty and costs you an accommodation problem. You know your number and your date, and you write offers with nothing hanging off them. What you have instead is a day by which you need somewhere to live, and with this much inventory a buyer is rarely bidding against anyone, so a longer completion is usually negotiable, and a rent back is worth asking for.
Buying first, and what a lender actually requires
Bridge financing is the usual answer, and it is worth reading what the lenders publish rather than what the general articles say. RBC states that to qualify, a firm sale agreement must be in place on your existing home, that terms are typically six months and can range from 90 days to 12 months or longer, and that interest can be more expensive than conventional financing. TD states that bridge financing typically allows a buyer to carry mortgages on two properties for up to 90 days, wants both the sale agreement and the purchase agreement, and prices it like an open mortgage.
Two of the largest lenders in the country publish terms that differ by a factor of two on length, so do not plan around bridge financing as a general idea. Get your own lender's terms in writing before you write the offer, and ask what happens if the term runs out on you. The Bank of Canada's target rate has been 2.25 per cent and the chartered bank prime rate 4.45 per cent as of the week of October 14, 2026, and a bridge is priced above a regular mortgage, not at it.
The sentence to keep is RBC's. A bridge covers a sale you already have, not one you hope to make, and firm means subjects removed. While your home is only listed, bridge financing is not available to you.
Subject to sale offers, and when a seller takes one
The third route is to buy first, with the purchase subject to the sale of your home. Whether that is accepted has little to do with how the clause is written and everything to do with the other seller's alternatives. A seller holding one of the 600 active detached listings in White Rock and South Surrey, where roughly one in ten sold in September, is in a different position than a Langley townhouse seller in a segment above the balanced band. The first will listen. The second usually declines, or accepts and keeps the home on the market with the right to ask you to remove the condition if another offer arrives. Expect it to cost you on price, because you are asking someone to carry your risk.
Before you sign one, read how the condition and the rest of the timeline interact. My piece on subject removal in BC covers the mechanics, including the rescission period that runs alongside it.
The tax that catches a slow sale
This one rarely comes up until it is too late. The speculation and vacancy tax applies in the Township of Langley, the City of Langley, Surrey and White Rock, all named taxable areas. For 2026 the rate is 1 per cent of assessed value for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are not untaxed worldwide earners, up from 0.5 per cent, and 3 per cent for foreign owners. It is charged on how the property was used during the calendar year, and the declaration is due each March 31.
The year you move is usually fine. The home you bought is exempt in the year of purchase if property transfer tax was paid, and the home you left normally still holds the principal residence exemption, because you lived in it the longest part of that year. The second calendar year is the problem. That exemption can only go to the home you live in longest, the year of purchase exemption is spent, and the province's list carries nothing for a home sitting empty while listed. The tenancy exemption needs a tenant for six months of the year, which is hard to combine with selling. One per cent of a $1.300M assessment is $13,000, which is a real number to weigh against holding out into a second year.
What I would do
If you are selling the tighter side, a Langley townhouse at the moment, buying first is defensible with your lender's bridge terms in hand before you write anything. If you are selling the looser side, detached in White Rock or South Surrey above all, sell first, or at least have an accepted offer with subjects removed before you commit to a purchase. Downsizers, your sale is the hard half and the one to start.
Start with what your home is worth, then look at how I would market your home on the timeline you have. Price bands for both markets sit on my Langley real estate and South Surrey real estate pages, and what it costs to sell a home in Langley covers the money that comes off the other end. Send me the address and the move you have in mind and I will put the two sides side by side.
Sources, checked October 18, 2026. Fraser Valley Real Estate Board September 2026 package, released October 5, 2026, for sales, active listings, benchmarks and days to sell, with the ratios calculated from its counts. RBC and TD bridge financing pages. Bank of Canada for the target rate and the prime rate. Province of British Columbia for the speculation and vacancy tax rates, taxable areas and individual exemptions. Not legal, tax or mortgage advice.