Crystal and Tyler Tost overlooking Calgary at twilight
For luxury buyers considering a move to Calgary, the temptation is to start with the homes.
Crystal Tost suggests starting somewhere else. "Don't start with the house. Start with how you want to live."
That advice comes from nearly three decades of helping people buy and sell Calgary real estate. Crystal has been a Calgary REALTOR® since 1997 and leads CalgaryListings Group with Tyler Tost, a mortgage professional since 2002 and REALTOR® since 2013. Together, they work with local and relocating buyers across Calgary's luxury communities and surrounding estate markets.
Their approach is simple: understand the buyer first, narrow down the right parts of Calgary second, and only then get serious about individual properties.
One of the challenges for someone moving to Calgary is understanding just how different the city can feel from one area to another.
A contemporary estate in Aspen Woods offers a completely different lifestyle from an established home in Mount Royal. Springbank Hill changes the equation again, while Springbank or Bearspaw can mean acreage living, larger parcels and foothills or mountain views.
All can fall within Calgary's broader luxury market, but they aren't interchangeable. A relocating buyer needs to consider schools, commute, recreation, mountain access, lot size, walkability, privacy and how much property they actually want to maintain.
"A beautiful home can get your attention very quickly," Crystal says. "Our job is to look at everything that comes with it."
West Calgary is an area Crystal knows particularly well. She lived in Aspen and Calgary's west side for more than 20 years, and communities such as Aspen Woods, West Springs and Springbank Hill continue to attract buyers looking for larger homes, newer construction, access to schools and a relatively easy route west toward the Rockies.
For someone relocating with a family, the combination can be compelling. But buying well requires more than choosing a community name.
Within the same neighbourhood, two seemingly similar homes can have very different long-term prospects because of the lot, street, views, traffic, future development or location within the community.
"I always tell buyers you can virtually change anything you want in a home except pick it up and move it," Crystal says. "The kitchen, flooring and paint can all change. The lot, the street and the location can't."
Other relocating buyers want something newer communities can't recreate: mature trees, established streets, distinctive architecture, larger inner-city lots and proximity to downtown.
That brings neighbourhoods such as Mount Royal, Elbow Park and Britannia into the conversation. These communities contain some of Calgary's most distinctive residential properties, but determining value can be more nuanced.
The land itself may represent a substantial portion of the property's value. Renovation quality, redevelopment potential, orientation and the specific street can all matter. For a buyer arriving from another city, those distinctions can be easy to miss when comparing homes online.
For some relocating buyers, Calgary is attractive precisely because they can have something that may have been unrealistic in the city they're leaving: more land, more privacy, more space between neighbours and perhaps a view of the foothills and mountains.
That can move the search toward Springbank, Bearspaw and Calgary's surrounding country-residential market.
Acreage living brings a different due-diligence list. Water systems, septic systems, access, outbuildings, land maintenance and property-specific considerations all become part of the purchase.
Crystal and Tyler don't view their role as convincing a buyer to choose one lifestyle over another. The objective is to make sure the buyer understands the trade-offs before making the decision.
Relocating buyers face another challenge: market conditions can change quickly. CalgaryListings Group maintains a live snapshot of Calgary's luxury market, currently tracking homes at $1.5 million and above.
Rather than relying on statistics frozen on the date this article was published, the snapshot updates as market conditions change.
Calgary Luxury Market Snapshot
The live CalgaryListings widget would be embedded here and update automatically.
The numbers provide a useful starting point, but Crystal and Tyler caution against treating Calgary's luxury market as a single category. A $1.8-million home in West Springs may have a very different competitive market from a similarly priced inner-city property or an acreage west of Calgary.
The relevant market is usually the relatively small group of properties the same buyer would realistically consider instead. Understanding that competitive set matters when deciding how aggressively to negotiate - or whether to make an offer at all.
The partnership between Crystal and Tyler gives relocating buyers two complementary perspectives.
Crystal's focus begins with the real estate itself: neighbourhood, street, lot, construction, renovations, comparable sales, price and eventual resale.
Tyler brings another dimension. He has worked in the mortgage business since 2002, more than a decade before becoming a REALTOR® himself in 2013.
"The question isn't only whether you can finance the home," Tyler says. "It's how the purchase fits with everything else you're trying to do - especially when you're relocating and there may be another property, equity and two different closing dates involved."
A buyer may be selling in another province while purchasing in Calgary. Significant equity may be moving between properties. Financing and possession dates may need to be coordinated. A buyer may be deciding whether to purchase first, sell first or rent temporarily while becoming familiar with the city.
Together, those perspectives change the conversation from whether a buyer can purchase a particular house to whether it is the right property, in the right location, structured the right way.
Crystal and Tyler increasingly begin working with relocating clients before they ever arrive in Calgary. That was also part of the thinking behind CalgaryListings.com.
Rather than functioning only as a property-search website, CalgaryListings Group has developed resources to help buyers understand communities, compare different parts of the city, follow market conditions and search current MLS® listings.
Someone considering a move can begin with the Moving to Calgary resources. Buyers considering the upper end of the market can use the Calgary Luxury Real Estate section to explore current properties, communities and market information.
"The easiest relocations are usually the ones where we sort out the financial side before Crystal finds you a house you fall in love with," Tyler says. "Then when the right property comes along, we already know what we can do and how we're going to do it."
The goal is that when a buyer eventually gets on a plane to Calgary, the trip isn't spent driving randomly from one side of the city to another. Instead, the buyer already understands the areas and can spend that time seriously evaluating a carefully selected group of properties.
There is another side of luxury real estate that doesn't always appear in marketing: sometimes the right advice is to walk away.
Crystal has no problem telling a client she believes a property is overpriced, that a renovation concerns her, that the location doesn't justify the premium - or simply that a better opportunity is likely to come along.
"I'm much more interested in helping someone make a good decision than simply getting a transaction together," she says.
That becomes increasingly important as purchase prices rise. A spectacular house can still be the wrong house.
Calgary gives luxury buyers an unusually broad range of ways to live. An established estate surrounded by mature trees can place a buyer minutes from downtown. A contemporary west Calgary home can provide space for a family while keeping the mountains within easy reach. An acreage west of the city can offer land, privacy and foothills views while remaining connected to Calgary.
There is no single Calgary neighbourhood Crystal and Tyler recommend to every luxury buyer. That's exactly the point.
"The right Calgary property should fit your life, not simply your budget," Crystal says.
For someone contemplating a move to Calgary, figuring out what that life should look like is the best place to start. Then comes the house.
Crystal Tost has been a Calgary REALTOR® since 1997 and is Team Lead of CalgaryListings Group, powered by eXp Realty. She has represented buyers and sellers throughout Calgary, including luxury homes, estate properties and surrounding acreage markets, and lived in west Calgary for more than 20 years.
Tyler Tost has worked in the mortgage industry since 2002 and has been a REALTOR® since 2013. His combination of financing and real estate experience provides an additional perspective for buyers navigating complex purchases and relocations.
Suggested links: CalgaryListings Group · Calgary Luxury Real Estate · Moving to Calgary
CalgaryListings.com
Calgary Luxury Real Estate
Moving to Calgary
