Loading…
What actually moves the outcome of a sale — the price you start at, the work worth doing first, and the number you finish with.
Almost every home that sits unsold was priced on optimism. The market does not care what you paid, what you owe, what you need for the next place, or what your neighbour claims they got — it responds to what comparable homes have actually sold for in the last few months.
The cost of getting this wrong is not just time. A listing that sits accumulates days on market, and buyers read that number as a signal that something is wrong with the property. By the time you reduce, you are often negotiating from a weaker position than if you had started at the right number.
Start with an instant estimate from comparables, then have me do it properly — a real analysis weighs which comparables are genuinely comparable, which is where the judgment lives.
The number that matters is what reaches your account, and it is meaningfully lower than the sale price. Commission, HST on that commission, legal fees, your mortgage payout and any discharge or prepayment penalty all come off first.
The HST catches people out more than anything else — it is charged on the commission, so on a $1.2 million sale at 5% it is roughly $7,800 that sellers routinely forget exists until the statement of adjustments arrives. Work your net out here.
If you are breaking a fixed-rate mortgage before the end of its term, ask your lender for the exact prepayment penalty in writing. It can be a few months' interest or an interest rate differential running into five figures, and it is too variable for any calculator to estimate honestly.
Preparation pays, but not evenly. What reliably returns more than it costs:
What usually does not return its cost right before a sale: a full kitchen or bathroom renovation, landscaping projects, and anything reflecting a strong personal taste. If it would take months and a permit, it is a decision about living there, not about selling.
Spring is busy, but it is busy with sellers as well as buyers, so more competition arrives with the extra traffic. A well-priced home in a thin market can do better than an averagely-priced one in a crowded spring.
What matters more than the season is the supply in your own segment right now — how many comparable homes are listed, how quickly they are selling, and whether the balance favours buyers or sellers. That is measurable, and it is what my market reports track for each city and district.
If you are selling and buying in the same market, the seasonal question mostly cancels itself out — you sell into the same conditions you buy in.
The highest offer is not always the best one. What sits alongside the price:
A slightly lower unconditional offer with a firm closing date is frequently the stronger one. My job at that table is to tell you which is which, not to push you toward the biggest number on the page.
If the home has been your principal residence for every year you owned it, the gain is generally exempt from capital gains tax. That covers most sellers, and it is why the net proceeds calculator does not model tax.
It gets more involved if the property was a rental for part of the time, if it is a second home or cottage, if you moved abroad while owning it, or if you have been buying and selling frequently enough that the CRA might treat the gain as business income.
Any of those is a question for an accountant before you list, not after you close. I am not qualified to answer it and I will tell you so.
Buying, selling, or just trying to work out whether the timing makes sense — a short call costs you nothing and usually makes the decision a lot clearer.
