Insider Advice
Moving On Big moves often coincide with big life changes. Here’s how one East side resident leveraged the sale of her home as a way to move forward.
WHEN JULIE WATSON’S MARRIAGE ended after 16 years, she found herself faced with a whole slew of decisions. The most intimidating one was what to do about the couple’s largest asset —their detached home on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Beaches. “We’d agreed to put the house on the market, but there was so much I wasn’t prepared for,” she says. “I was a stay-at-home mom for most of the marriage and my ex-husband had taken care of all the family finances. There I was on my own, trying to sort out the sale of the house and figure out where I could afford to live.” Even though the house was in a desirable neighbourhood, Watson, who had just opened a yoga studio, Afterglow, felt like she was in a precarious position financially. “My income
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EastTO Magazine
was uncertain at that time, and I didn’t know if I would even qualify for a mortgage on a new home,” she says. While stressful, Watson’s situation isn’t unusual when almost 40 percent of Canadian marriages end in divorce (and that number is expected to climb in a post-Covid world). Agent Cera Dann of the Richards Group routinely counsels clients who are going through a similar process. “Generally, there are two main options when it comes to the family home,” says Dann. “Either one partner stays in the house and buys out the other partner’s share, or they sell the property and split the proceeds, which they can then use to buy new homes.”
