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The spring housing market is here, and with it a temptation to move, but before you pull the trigger on a purchase, it is worth stepping back and considering a long-range plan for how many times you will buy and sell homes in your lifetime.

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Downsizing, upsizing, buying for the first time … it doesn’t matter; the transaction costs that come with real estate are something we all need to consider. And they are not going down. They seem to be going up based on taxes, commissions and moving costs.

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The costs start with the fee to real estate brokers, which can easily be five per cent, or $50,000 on a $1-million home. In Toronto, land transfer taxes would be almost $33,000 on that home. The buyer pays it, but it’s likely imbedded in the price and, besides, you’ll be paying it on the home you purchase to replace your existing one.

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It’s not unreasonable to add in another $2,000 for a lawyer, and there are endless soft costs with fixing your home up for sale and redecorating your new home.

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Jennifer Hughes, a certified financial planner at Modern Cents, which doesn’t sell products or give specific investment recommendations, said the “rule of thumb” is to hold your home for seven to 10 years.

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“It’s not perfect in every case,” she said. “There are reasons to move, specifically, relocating to work.”

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Hughes points out that, at the very least, you need to be taking advantage of claiming home expenses. Canada Revenue Agency lets you deduct expenses associated with the move, including the cost of selling your home, from your income.

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Generally, you can claim moving expenses you paid in the year if you meet two conditions: you moved to a new home to work or to run a business out of a new location or you moved to be a student in full-time attendance in a post-secondary program at a university, college or other educational institution.

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Your new home must be at least 40 kilometres closer to your new work location or school.

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A move can make sense. Life circumstances change, and living in a city such as Toronto, where commuting can easily take an hour each way in traffic, a 40-kilometre reduction in travel each way translates to real savings when you think about the value of your time.

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“One thing to keep in mind is, are you doing the move because of your life or are you doing the move to keep up with the Joneses and you think you need a bigger home?” Hughes said.

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Daniel Foch, chief real estate officer at Valery Real Estate Inc., said commissions haven’t moved much from the four per cent to five per cent range. The issue in a rising housing market has been that many people just think, “Well, I made money,” so they feel justified in moving again.

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“In the last 15 years, if you moved seven times, other than the last five (years), you probably would have netted out ahead, even after fees and taxes,” Fuch said. “The market in perpetual growth made it easy to ignore the cost and inefficiency of moving.”

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The issue with making money is that you net less than you would have if you had skipped out on a couple of moves. Ultimately, most moves on the way up follow family expansion and see people make a bigger bet on housing, a strategy that has worked for almost two decades. Maybe not anymore.