Buyer timeline (full)
Week-by-week buyer playbook.
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Buyer FAQ
Six to twelve weeks from your first showing to getting keys. Here's where the time actually goes — and how to compress it without cutting corners.
Quick Answer
How Long Does It Take to Buy a House in Coquitlam?
Six to twelve weeks from your first showing to getting keys. Here's where the time actually goes — and how to compress it without cutting corners. Craig Johnston, Top 1% Team Member — Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, 2022–2025 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.
Most Coquitlam buyers close 6–12 weeks after starting to tour. Under 6 weeks is possible but requires a pre-approved, decisive buyer and a market with inventory. Over 12 weeks usually means something's off — pricing, clarity on what you want, or market friction.
The timeline isn't fixed. It's compressible with preparation and expandable by dithering.
Pull credit, get pre-approved, know your real budget.
See 8–15 homes. Clarify what you actually want.
Write, negotiate, home inspection, financing.
Legal, funds, title transfer, keys.
You can't offer confidently. Extra 2 weeks easily.
Touring 30 homes instead of 15. Extra 2–4 weeks.
Financing or inspection issues add 1–2 weeks.
You can pick a longer close — just know you're choosing it.
The fastest Coquitlam purchases are pre-approved buyers with clear criteria. Start with the first-time buyer guide or the affordability math.
Once you're pre-approved, the full buyer timeline walks through each week in detail.
Pre-approval before first showing. Clear criteria before second showing. An offer written within 4–6 weeks of starting. If we're not making progress by week 4, we reset — usually it's pricing or criteria.
The goal isn't speed — it's avoiding the common trap of drifting for months without getting to an offer.
Most of the timeline anxiety I see comes from a single misunderstanding: buyers count deadlines in calendar days while their contract counts them in business days. The two diverge fast, and they diverge worst in exactly the weeks people most want to buy.
Weekends do not count. Statutory holidays do not count. British Columbia observes eleven of them in 2026: 1 January, 16 February, 3 April, 18 May, 1 July, 3 August, 7 September, 30 September, 12 October, 11 November and 25 December. An offer accepted on the Thursday before the August long weekend, carrying a five business day condition period, does not come due the following Wednesday. It comes due on the Friday. Get that arithmetic wrong in the anxious direction and you spend a weekend chasing an extension you never needed.
Almost every contract carries three separate dates, and people routinely collapse them into the word closing.
The day title transfers and the money moves. Legally, this is when the property becomes yours.
The day you actually receive keys. Commonly the next day, sometimes the same day, occasionally later by agreement. This is the date the moving truck cares about.
The day the running costs switch from the seller's account to yours — property taxes, strata fees, utilities. Your lawyer prorates everything to this date.
They can each fall on a different day, and negotiating them is a real lever. A seller who needs an extra night in the house will often give ground elsewhere for a possession date that sits a day behind completion.
You sign at your lawyer's office and deliver the balance of your down payment one to three days before completion, not on the morning itself. Those funds sit in the lawyer's trust account until they are needed.
On the day, your lawyer files the transfer electronically with the Land Title and Survey Authority. The lender's lawyer files the mortgage at the same time and the seller's side prepares the discharge of theirs. Electronic filings are processed between six in the morning and eleven at night, Monday through Saturday. Once registration is confirmed, the funds release — deposit, mortgage advance and the remainder together — and the seller's lawyer clears the existing mortgage before releasing net proceeds.
Only after all of that do keys move. Which is why possession so often lands in the middle or late part of the afternoon rather than first thing, and why booking movers for eight in the morning on completion day is a decision people make exactly once.
In my experience the answer is nearly always the lender. Mortgage funds not in your lawyer's trust account in time is the single most common cause of a delayed completion, and it is also the most preventable, because it almost always traces back to a document the lender asked for weeks earlier and never received. If your broker chases you for a pay stub in July, send it in July.
Behind that, in rough order: a defect surfacing on title, such as a lien or judgment nobody knew about; home insurance not yet bound, because a lender will not advance against an uninsured property; a wire initiated too late in the day to settle before cut-off; and a seller who has simply not finished moving out.
There is also a structural problem worth designing around. Everybody wants to complete on the final business day of the month and move across the following weekend. That stacks lawyers, lenders and the land title queue into the same few hours. A completion set for a Tuesday or Wednesday in the middle of the month has slack in it, and if something does go sideways there are still business days left in that week to repair it before you are sitting outside with a truck.
Separate from anything you negotiate, British Columbia gives residential buyers a statutory Home Buyer Rescission Period: three business days after acceptance to withdraw, on payment of a fee equal to a quarter of one per cent of the offer price. It runs from acceptance and it runs alongside your condition period rather than after it, and it applies whether or not your offer carried any conditions at all. Certain property types sit outside it. Because that period interacts with how you structure an offer, it has its own full treatment on the rescission period page — worth reading before you write, not after.
Possible with pre-approval, clarity, and inventory. Uncommon.
2–3 weeks if financing is clean and the seller agrees. Normal is 4–8.
Yes. Low-inventory markets extend touring. Competitive markets compress offers.
No. Fast doesn't mean rushed. Prepare, tour, decide — don't skip steps.
I answer these kinds of questions every day. A 15-minute call usually resolves it.
The full set for planning your purchase.
I have spent the last 47+ years living in Coquitlam, 9+ years on Burke Mountain, helping move-up buyers and sellers get from where they are to where they want to be — without the panic of owning two homes at once or selling under value. I work the Tri-Cities every day: Burke Mountain, Westwood Plateau, Heritage Mountain, and the rest of Coquitlam’s move-up neighbourhoods.
If you want a straight read on your timing, pricing, or move-up strategy, the fastest next step is a short call.
Licensed REALTOR® in Coquitlam. Tri-Cities-fluent, written-advice-first. Here's how I work any client file that lands on this page.
Every cost, tax, and legal step in the Coquitlam buying process is spelled out by a government or regulatory authority below. Use these as the definitive source — your agent and lawyer should line up with them, not the other way around.
External links open in a new tab. I'm not affiliated with these organizations — they are cited as independent authorities. Any time a number on this page differs from the authority, the authority wins.
Real reviews pulled from Google. No paid placements. No curated-only-positives. Every client below closed with Craig — most sold over asking, several within a week.
“Craig absolutely delivered on his promise of selling my condo, exceeding my expectations. Craig met with me prior to listing and gave helpful advice for making my home shine to potential buyers. The media and internet exposure, salesmanship and presentation were all top tier.”
“He went above and beyond what was required and managed to sell our condo at one of the slowest times of the year! From helping with the staging to being available to show to the unit at any time, Craig managed to sell our place when other comparable units nearby had been sitting for weeks!”
“No matter value of the property, Craig puts great care into preparing high-quality marketing content, ensuring each listing is presented at its absolute best. Craig presents very professionally and is very responsive with his communications.”
“We recently moved from overseas and were not familiar with the purchasing process in BC. Craig was fantastic spending the time to explain everything thoroughly so we had a good handle on things. We felt we were in very experienced hands.”
“Craig is one of the best realtor to work with, highly knowledgable and very patient. Guided us through the whole process stress free. Highly Recommend Craig Johnston.”
“He spent time getting to know us, visiting homes on our behalf until we were in the market. Craig prepared us to better understand the local market, city planning and developments all to refine our search. He is professional and works well with other realtors — a true partner in the process of purchasing a home!”
“Craig is what everyone hopes they will find in a realtor, yet is so incredibly rare. His foundation of genuine care and generosity with his time is outstanding… We never felt rushed, pressured or stressed by what is fundamentally a rather daunting experience, and it was because he created a dynamic of collaboration and support.”
“Craig extended such patience, excitement and professionalism in helping my husband and I buy a townhouse in Port Coquitlam (my hometown!) so we could continue raising our two girls where I also grew up. When we faced a hurdle getting financing approval because of a lien on our desired townhome, Craig worked tirelessly with our broker to get the lien removed.”
“Craig was a pleasure to work with for the purchase of our home. Craig was very patient as we debated between a condo and a townhome. Craig found us a home that ticked all of our boxes plus some! He made the whole process smooth and enjoyable.”
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