Craig Johnston Personal Real Estate Corporation · Brokerage: Royal LePage Elite West
What's inside, who it's for, and how the Parallel Motion protocol avoids the two-closing-gap trap that trips up many move-ups.
An 18-page guide covering the four move-up protocols, the Zero-Day-Gap coordination playbook, the equity-map worksheet, the $2M PTT step, the move-up zone scorecard for Coquitlam catchments, transition budgeting, the 90-day countdown, and how lenders underwrite buyers carrying two mortgages briefly.
A move-up is a sale-plus-purchase transaction executed together — typically selling a townhome or starter detached to buy a larger detached in a stronger school catchment. The difficulty is not either transaction individually; it's coordinating the two close dates so the family isn't homeless for three weeks or double-paying bridge interest.
Treating the sale and the purchase as two separate transactions with independent timelines. That's simple on paper and hard on the family — the gap between closings becomes the family's coordination problem. Parallel Motion runs both transactions from week one to land close dates 7–14 days apart.
Yes — completely free, no gated payment, no trial expiry. Opt-in opens the PDF straight away. You'll also get three short emails over the first ten days (a welcome, this month's market read and a brief introduction to me), then one market update a month. Unsubscribe works on any email.
Start the equity map and pre-approval conversation 6–9 months before your target move-in month. Listing prep runs 60–90 days. Shopping for the next home happens in parallel, starting 3–4 months out. Many families start later than they should.
Parallel Motion lands the sale and purchase close dates 7–14 days apart, often with a short negotiated rent-back on the sold home that covers the physical move. Bridge financing becomes unnecessary when the timeline is built intentionally. Many families pay bridge interest not because the deal requires it, but because the schedule was never designed to avoid it.
Sources referenced on this page include the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, BCREA, CMHC, the Government of British Columbia, School District 43, and the City of Coquitlam. Last reviewed 2026-04-20.
FREE DOWNLOAD — 18 pages
An 18-page planning document for Coquitlam families moving from their first home to a bigger one. Written from experience with dozens of move-up transactions — the four protocols, the bridge-financing math, and the 90-day countdown that turns a stressful move into a calm one.
No sales calls. No drip of 30 emails. One download, three short welcome emails, then one market update a month. Unsubscribe any time.
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What should you know about the Move-Up Planner?
An 18-page planning document for Coquitlam families moving from their first home to a bigger one. Written from experience with dozens of move-up transactions — the four protocols, the bridge-financing math, and the 90-day countdown that turns a stressful move into a calm one. Craig Johnston, Top 1% Team — Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, 2023–2025 and 47+ year Tri-Cities resident, can walk you through the local context. Free Strategy Call ends with a written one-page plan in 24 hours.
What's inside
No filler, no generic advice you've read ten times. Every section pulls from the conversations I have with clients in my office each week.
Sell first (rent bridge), buy first (hold both), subject-to-sale, bridge financing — matrix of which fits you.
How to coordinate sale and purchase completion dates so you don't carry both homes or live in a rental.
On a $1.2M sale — remaining mortgage, prepayment penalty, selling costs, PTT on new purchase, net deployable equity.
Property Transfer Tax is 1% on the first $200K, 2% up to $2M and 3% from $2M to $3M (plus an extra 2% on residential value above $3M). For example, a $2.1M purchase pays about $41,000 in PTT versus about $37,800 at $1.99M — the higher rate applies only to the portion above $2M.
Six neighbourhoods scored on schools, commute, home size, resale, lifestyle — helps you shortlist without six weekends of guessing.
Legal, PTT, bridge interest, moving, staging for current home, storage, paint/touch-ups, new-home window treatments, utility setup.
Weeks 12-9 (prep + pricing), weeks 8-5 (staging + listing), weeks 4-2 (offers), week 1-0 (subject removal + completion).
If you bridge, what does monthly look like? How long can you financially carry both homes? Worked examples at three price points.
What happens after you sign up
Here's exactly what happens over the first ten days — and what doesn't.
The PDF opens in your browser as soon as you submit. Save it — it's yours, no strings attached.
A welcome note within about an hour, this month's market read on day 2, and a short introduction to me on day 10. Reply to any of them if the guide raised a question. That's the entire sequence.
Current inventory, pricing by neighbourhood, DOM trends, and one commentary note on what it means if you're planning your next move. Unsubscribe with one click, any time.
No phone calls unless you ask. No 30-day drip with urgency tactics. No list-rental or shared-with-partners. No "are you ready to buy?" emails every week. This is a signup, not a sales funnel.
About the author
I've been in the Tri-Cities for 47+ years and on Burke Mountain for the last nine years. I built this guide the way I'd build a briefing for a close friend — honest numbers, genuine trade-offs, and specific streets and buildings named where naming them mattered. You don't get that from templated PDFs.
If the guide answers your questions, great. If it raises new ones, my contact details are on the last page and you're welcome to email or text. I reply personally within a business day — no assistant, no call centre.
A five-step process built around clarity, strategy, and no-surprise execution — whether you're buying your first home or selling a property you've owned for twenty years.
We start with a real conversation about your goals, timeline, and numbers. I'll pull current comps, assess your buying power or home's true market value, and tell you exactly what the data says — not what you want to hear.
I build a written strategy around your priorities: target neighbourhoods, pricing strategy, timeline, financing structure, and the trade-offs at each decision point. Every recommendation comes with a reason.
For sellers: pre-list prep, staging direction, pro photography, and a pricing framework that draws interest without leaving money on the table. For buyers: offer structure, subject clauses, and the due-diligence checklist for every property that matters.
This is where experience pays for itself. I negotiate price, terms, subjects, deposit, completion dates, and the small details that don't show up in listings but decide whether a deal closes well or falls apart.
From subject removal through completion and possession, I coordinate with lawyers, lenders, inspectors, and trades so nothing drops. After closing, I stay in your corner for everything from tax-assessment appeals to the next move.
Frequently asked
It depends on (a) how much liquidity you have to carry both homes, (b) how specific your target home is, and (c) how hot the inventory you want is. Sell first protects the money; buy first protects the target home. The Move-Up Planner includes a decision matrix with five factors — many Coquitlam families end up in 'subject-to-sale' territory, which is the middle path.
If you break a fixed-rate mortgage before maturity, your lender charges either three months' interest OR the Interest Rate Differential — whichever is greater. On mortgages taken at higher rates that have since dropped, the IRD can be much larger than three months' interest. The kit shows you how to calculate yours and when portability makes more sense than breaking.
The sale-side content, timing protocols, and transition budget all transfer. The equity math inverts (you're releasing equity instead of redeploying it). For a pure downsizer, the 'Coquitlam Neighbourhoods for Downsizers' page on the site is a better starting point, and the Move-Up Planner is a useful companion.
Last updated October 7, 2026 — current stress-test rates, current PTT tiers, current CMHC thresholds ($500K / $1.5M cliffs), and current Coquitlam median prices by neighbourhood. I refresh the kit every six months.
Related reading
Tri-Cities monthly
September 2026 Coquitlam detached HPI is $1,584,400, -6.6% YoY. What that means for your buy or sell decision — without the salesy fluff. One email per month. Unsubscribe anytime.
No spam, no listings flood, no marketing automation games. Genuine monthly update from a 47+ year Tri-Cities resident.
4.9 stars across 36+ verified Google reviews. Three from recent clients below.
“Craig kept me informed of the local market for a couple of years before I asked him to handle my Coquitlam sale. He laid out the strategy upfront, the listing generated a lot of interest, and we had an acceptable offer in under a month. I was stressed going in — Craig helped me overcome a lot of my anxiety. I’ve already introduced him to my sister, who plans to sell soon.”Fj Young
“Craig was there with us everyday. Guiding us to our next step we were kept informed daily sometimes multiple times a day as to what was happening… Our home sold in only 6 days with multiple offers.”Gerry & Aline Howitson
“After searching for several years, I knew exactly what I was looking for—and Craig delivered. We viewed a handful of properties, and the home he ultimately found was exactly what I had been searching for. I couldn't believe how quickly he nailed it.”Warren Chu