Should you sell or rent out your home?

Selling gives you certainty and access to your equity through a lawyer-closed sale, while renting keeps the asset but adds landlord duties under the Residential Tenancies Act 2006 and changes how the Canada Revenue Agency taxes it. The right call depends on your timeline, whether you can carry two properties, and how much equity you need now.

Selling is the simpler transaction. You list, accept an offer subject to financing and condition, close through a lawyer, and the proceeds land in your account, generally after seller closing costs of 4 to 6 percent covering commission, legal fees and adjustments. Legal fees on a straightforward Saskatoon sale typically run $800 to $1,500. From that point the equity is liquid, the decision is finished, and you are not carrying two properties through the winter waiting for a tenant to work out.

Renting keeps the asset but does not keep things simple. As a landlord in Saskatchewan you take on obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act 2006, covering notice periods, security deposits and repair responsibilities, and you are on the hook for property tax, insurance and maintenance whether or not the unit is occupied. Rental income is taxable, and once a property stops being your principal residence the Canada Revenue Agency treats a later sale differently. The change in use rules can trigger a deemed disposition and reduce or eliminate the principal residence exemption for the years it was a rental, so the tax bill on an eventual sale can be larger than sellers expect. This is a genuinely complex area and worth a conversation with an accountant before you commit either way.

If the home was jointly owned or is part of a separation, there are extra layers. The Homesteads Act, 1989 requires a spouse's written consent before a family home is sold, and The Family Property Act governs how property is divided when a relationship ends, which can affect whether renting is even an option you control alone. These are exactly the situations where getting legal advice before listing or leasing saves a later dispute.

The financial side of the decision starts with knowing what the home is actually worth today, not what an online estimate or the City of Saskatoon's assessed value says. A basement finished without a permit, an updated kitchen or new mechanical systems change the real number in ways public records never capture, whether you are pricing a sale or deciding if the rent you could charge justifies holding on. Joel Dyck's hand-reviewed valuation walks the property and accounts for the improvements that matter, so the comparison between selling now and renting it out is based on a real number instead of a guess. It also gives you a figure you can revisit later, since a valuation done today still tells you where you stand if you decide to sell after a year or two of renting instead of right now. Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.