How to price a Vancouver home to sell

Market value is what a buyer will actually pay today, established from comparable sales in your area: similar size, age, condition and construction, sold recently. Ninety days of closed sales in your building or on your street is a good place to start. Adjust for size, condition and the obvious things like view, parking and layout.

Then look at your real competition: what is for sale in your price band, how many have already cut, and which ones sat. Those sellers have admitted their first number was off, and now they are priced against you. An asking price is a hope with a photo attached.

• Your assessment. It's a mass valuation for taxation, and nobody walked through your home. Buyers will still quote it at you when it suits them.
• What you paid. It has no bearing on today's value.
• What you need to net. Your mortgage and your next purchase are real constraints on your decision, but they aren't inputs to what a buyer will pay. If there's a gap, deal with it before you list.
• What your neighbour is listed at. It's an opinion until it sells.
• What you spent on the renovation. Cosmetic work usually holds up better than a big pre-sale renovation. If the roof or another major system needs real work, fixing it often costs less than negotiating around it.

In the first two weeks you get every buyer who's been waiting for a home like yours, all at once, and they are bidding against the idea of each other. After that you get them one at a time, and each of them can see how long you've been sitting.

Overprice and you waste that attention. Buyers who would have paid market value see it, judge it as expensive and move on. By the time the price comes down, the listing carries its days on market and every buyer asks what's wrong with it. Reductions almost always end below where a correct price would have landed, weeks or months later. I go through what that looks like in why homes fail to sell.

Decide before listing day what you will do if there is no offer by day 14. The market tells you within a couple of weeks if your price is right, and a smaller adjustment early is cheaper than a bigger one in week ten.

Don't take the highest one. I know how that sounds. If one agent comes in well above the other two, that agent may be buying your business, not pricing your property, and the walk down was coming from the day you signed. Agreeing with a seller is the easiest way in the world to win a listing.

Take the one who shows you where the number came from, sale by sale, and who tells you something you don't want to hear in the first meeting. Being wrong is normal. Having no basis is the problem. Then ask what happens in week three. If the answer is a price adjustment, you know what you're buying. If they can tell you what goes out in week two and week three and who it goes to, that's a plan.

In tight inventory, listing deliberately below market to draw competing offers is a real strategy, and it works in the right segment. It isn't a default. I only use it when the comparables and current demand support it, and never without your explicit agreement on the floor. The best offer is the one that actually completes. A lower number with a quick close and no subjects can beat a higher one with a long close and conditions, so run both through the seller net sheet and compare what you actually walk away with.

Your house sells twice: online, where buyers decide whether to come, and in person, where they decide what to pay. Presentation earns you the showing, and the price does the rest. Think about a pre-listing inspection before the photographer comes, fix what's cheap to fix, and if you're in a strata, have the document package ready so a buyer doesn't need a week to review it. And be honest about whether you need to sell. If this is more of a want than a need in a slow market, I'd rather tell you that at the start.