Four things decide what your home sells for: the price you start at, how it shows, how many buyers see it, and how the offers are handled when they come. Everything else is detail. Here is how each one works, what it costs to sell in British Columbia, and the questions to put to any REALTOR® before you sign a listing agreement — including us.
Pricing: the first three weeks decide it
A new listing gets more attention in its first two or three weeks than in the whole rest of its life. Every serious buyer already looking in your area sees it, and their agents call. That attention does not come back. Price it right and you are negotiating with people who turned up early; price it high and you spend that window teaching the market that your home is too expensive.
What happens next is predictable. The listing goes quiet. You reduce, but you are now chasing the market rather than leading it, and the reduction reads as weakness rather than value. Homes that sit get asked "what is wrong with it?" — and the eventual sale price is very often below what an accurately priced listing would have achieved in week two.
Getting the place ready
Almost every buyer sees your home on a phone first. Twelve good photographs decide whether they ever stand in it. Before the camera comes:
Worth doing
- Take out a third of your belongings. Not tidying — removing. Rooms read as bigger and buyers can picture their own things in them.
- Depersonalise, but do not sterilise. Family photographs and fridge clutter go. A home that feels lived in still sells better than one that feels staged to death.
- Fix the small broken things. The sticking door, the dead bulb, the running toilet, the grubby switch plates. Individually trivial; together they say "deferred maintenance".
- Clean past your own standard. Windows, grout, oven, and whatever the pets have contributed. Then get it professionally cleaned anyway.
- Paint, if the colour is unusual. The cheapest change with the biggest return.
- Sort the front. The photograph a buyer sees first, and the view while they wait at your door. Cut it, edge it, clear it.
Usually not worth doing
- A full kitchen or bathroom renovation right before listing. You rarely get it back, and your taste may not be the buyer's. Ask us first — sometimes the answer is yes, but it is not the default.
- Structural work you are guessing at. Get the quote and disclose it. Buyers discount an unknown far harder than a known number.
- Landscaping projects that will not be established by the photographs.
- Anything that needs a permit you will not have in time. Unpermitted work becomes the buyer's objection at subject removal.
What it costs to sell
Commission
Paid from the sale proceeds on completion, not out of pocket, and it covers both your agent and the buyer's. Rates are negotiable and are not set by any board or association — anyone who tells you there is a standard rate is mistaken. Ask what it is, what it includes, and how it is split, before you sign. GST applies to it.
Legal or notary fees
Preparing the transfer documents, clearing title and dealing with your lender. Typically $900 to $1,500 for a straightforward sale.
Mortgage discharge and penalty
The one that catches people. Breaking a fixed mortgage part-way through the term can cost thousands under the interest rate differential. Phone your lender for the exact figure before you decide on timing — it sometimes changes the plan.
Adjustments
Property tax, strata fees and utilities are apportioned to the adjustment date. If you have prepaid the year's taxes you get some back; if you have not, you pay your share.
Preparation
Cleaning, minor repairs, sometimes staging or storage. Ask what your agent covers — professional photography and floor plans should not be an extra.
Capital gains, if it is not your home
Your principal residence is generally exempt. A rental, a second property or a flip is not, and non-resident sellers have withholding obligations. Talk to an accountant early, not at completion.
Questions to ask any REALTOR® before you sign
- How did you arrive at that price? You want closed comparable sales with addresses and dates, and an explanation of the adjustments. Not a range and a feeling.
- What exactly are you going to do? Photography, floor plan, where it is advertised, open houses, how the listing reaches other agents' buyers. Get it in writing.
- Who will I be dealing with day to day? The person at your kitchen table, or an assistant you have not met?
- What is the commission, what does it include, and is it negotiable? The answer to the last part is yes. See what they say.
- How long is the listing agreement, and can I cancel it? Understand the term and the exit before you sign, not after.
- What happens if we get multiple offers? There are rules in BC about how competing offers are handled and disclosed. A good agent will explain them before it happens.
- Will you also be representing the buyer? Limited dual agency is restricted in British Columbia. Ask how they handle it.
- What are the three things about my home that will put buyers off? If they cannot answer this, they have not really looked.
Downsizing
Selling a family home of thirty years is a different job to selling a townhouse of three. The sequencing matters more — whether you buy first or sell first, how you bridge the gap, and what happens if the two dates do not line up. There is usually more to move than anyone expects and less urgency about the price than the timing.
If that is where you are, say so when you call. It changes the advice: we will talk about bridge financing, about buying subject to sale, and about what a realistic timeline looks like before we talk about a list price.
Start with what it is worth
One of our REALTORS® will walk your home, pull the comparable sales on your street and give you a straight number — with the reasoning behind it. No obligation and no pressure, and the analysis is yours to keep.
Request a Home Evaluation Meet Our REALTORS®