Canadian Home Seller Guide

A home is likely the single most significant investment you'll ever sell, so it is a financial decision that should be well researched and calculated. We have simplified the home selling process to 4 stages to help give a comprehensive walkthrough of the home-buying process:

At the end of this Overview, you will explore:

• How selling a home is unique

• Key activities in each stage

• Mortgage Sandbox’s home selling philosophy

How Selling a Home is Unique

The high cost of switching homes

You can sell stocks in an investment account and pay a $10 flat fee, but selling one home and buying another one costs thousands of dollars in fees, commissions, and taxes, not to mention hundreds of hours of your valuable time. As well, there is the risk of unequal information. You know a lot about the home you’re living in today and how much you enjoy it, but you know a lot less about the property you may move to and the enjoyment you will gain from the new home. Your lifestyle is not just affected by the home alone but is also affected by the local amenities and the relationships with your neighbours. If you end up regretting selling your old home and want to move back to your old neighbourhood in a few years, the costs can end up setting you back significantly.

The subjectivity of home values

Like most investments, the value of a home can be affected by how many other people are selling homes in the neighbourhood, the attractiveness of your property, local employment levels, and interest rates. Additionally, your home value can be affected by the ‘energy’ of your neighbourhood. The energy, or neighbourhood-feel, is composed of things like the quality of local schools, accessibility of public transit, the condition and maintenance of your neighbour’s homes, and even difficult to control issues like unpleasant neighbours. Not all these factors are apparent at an open house, and not all buyers have the same priorities when buying your home. Since homes are not commodities and buyers have many different motivations for buying a home, we that not all 900 square foot, 2-bedroom apartments are alike and interchangeable. Due to individual priorities and goals, one person's dream home could be another person’s prison. From an emotional standpoint, those two people will value the same home very differently. The emotional factor is exactly what you want to maximize to get the best value when selling your home, and that’s why we believe it won't be easy to digitize the role of a real estate agent.

Buyer’s conduct due diligence

A buyer may fall in love with your home and make an amazing offer, but generally, they will require a satisfactory home inspection and property valuation to complete the purchase. You should anticipate any issues and address them in advance, so the buyer doesn’t back out before closing.

The Key Activities In Each Stage

Home selling is complex and can differ strategically depending on whether your home is an apartment, a house, and whether you live in a city or the country. As you can see in the figure below, we have compared some of the examples provided by other advisors, and they often list anywhere from 8 to 14 steps in the process.

Mortgage Sandbox Four Stage Selling Process

We believe that at its heart, there are four primary stages to selling a home, but at each stage, we need to look at the Property and Risk Protection. In this section, we explore the key activities for each stage of the selling process.

1. Plan the sale

You’ve decided you want to sell your home, but before you start cleaning and fixing up your home, you need a plan. We don’t want you to spend money, time, and effort on things that won’t help you get more value for your home.

For more details and access to checklists, visit the detailed steps for ‘Planning the sale of your home’.

2. Prepare your home to sell

Once you have finalized worked with your Realtor to identify the type of buyer who would be most interested in your home, you need to prepare your home to appeal to that type of buyer.

It’s difficult to appeal to everyone, so you will focus on attracting a specific homebuyer category to make them fall in love with your home.

For example, perhaps you are empty nesters who have converted one bedroom to an office and another to a library. If you are hoping to sell your home to a young family, you may want to convert that office and library back into a couple of bedrooms for kids.

Get your real estate agent’s advice on what your target buyer expects to find in a house in your price range and your neighbourhood. Their advice can not only help you prepare your home to maximum appeal, but it can save you time and money on improvements that don’t make a significant difference to the sale price.

Preparing your home takes objectivity. View your home through the eyes of the buyer and ask yourself what you would expect. Even better, ask your agent to take you to open houses in your neighbourhood, so you see the condition of homes you’re trying to beat. Remember that most buyers are viewing at least a dozen homes before they make an offer. Yours needs to stack up to the competition.

For more details and access to checklists, visit the detailed steps for ‘Prepare your home to sell.’

3. Show your home

It’s showtime!!! Your agent should take care of most of the work at this point. Now that everything is in place and your house looks its best, your agent will list your home on the open market. An agent who is a savvy digital marketer can make all the difference to your success. Some ‘old-school’ agents simply list a home on the relator listings portal (called MLS) and wait for buyer agents to find the home. Modern agents, who want to get you an extra 2% to 3% on the sale price, know that HOW that home is marketed matters in a digital world.

If your home looks great, professional photos and high-resolution video will go a long way to gather interest in your home. People often assume that areas of the home with no photos have had the images omitted on purpose. In other words, if you didn’t post pictures of the entire home online, people think the areas that weren’t posted likely reveal a defect with the home.

Great digital marketing will cast a wide net and capture the attention of more buyers. More eyes on your marketing material will lead to more tours of your home and more competitive offers. You are responsible for staying out of the way and keeping your home in pristine condition until you have accepted an acceptable purchase offer.

For more details and access to checklists, visit the detailed steps for ‘Show your home.’

4. Close the sale

Your home isn’t sold when you accept an offer; you still need to complete the sale.

This is the home stretch. This stage is more stressful than showing your home and reaching an agreement to sell.

The buyer will likely need a home inspection and appraisal to finalize their mortgage approval. Lenders will also scrutinize meeting minutes and engineering reports from the condominium corporation if that’s applicable.

You or your Realtor will need to provide the inspector and appraiser with access to your property. As well, it would be best if you began preparing for the move.

For more details and access to checklists, visit the detailed steps for ‘Close the Sale of Your Home.’

Mortgage Sandbox Philosophy

At the core of our philosophy is a belief that Canadians want to work with, and give business to, people who share and understand their interests and values. Selling a home can take several months from beginning to end, and it is the most significant and complex financial transaction a Canadian will undertake. We believe you should embark on this journey with professionals who you get along with and trust.

We have developed a matching app that assesses your goals, interests, personal values, and working style to match you with local, pre-screened real estate agents and mortgage brokers with whom you will be predisposed to work well.

If there is anything unclear in the explanations above. Please let us know so we can improve our advice for the next reader.