Seller Guide · 01
What your home
is really worth
How valuation actually works, why the online estimate on your phone is wrong, and the questions to ask any agent who hands you a number.
Start here: price is not value
Three different numbers get called "what my house is worth," and they are not the same thing.
How a real valuation is built
A comparative market analysis is not a spreadsheet average. It is four separate readings of the same market, done in order.
- Sold comparables. Recently sold homes, not listed and not pending, of similar type, size, age, condition and location. Sold prices are fact. Asking prices are opinion. Anyone quoting you asking prices is describing other people's hopes.
- Adjustments. No two homes match, so each comparable gets adjusted for the differences: an extra bathroom, a finished basement, a garage, a busy street, a new roof, a dated kitchen. This is where experience does the work and where most automated tools fail completely.
- Active competition. What a buyer can choose instead of you, right now, at your price. You are not priced against last spring. You are priced against the four homes they will see the same weekend.
- Absorption and days on market. How many months of inventory your specific segment is carrying, and how long comparable homes are taking to sell. This tells us whether the market is giving you leverage or taking it away.
A valuation is a defensible range, not a single magic number. Any agent who gives you one number without showing you the comparables behind it is asking you to trust their confidence instead of their work.
Why the online estimate misses
Automated valuation models are useful for one thing: a rough sense of a neighbourhood. They are unreliable on your specific house, for reasons that don't go away.
- They have never been inside. Condition, layout, light and smell are worth tens of thousands, and none of them are in the data.
- They cannot see your renovations, or your deferred maintenance.
- They average across postal codes that contain very different streets. In Ottawa, two blocks changes the buyer pool.
- They lag the market. In a fast month they are behind; in a turning month they are badly behind.
- Thin data breaks them. Rural, waterfront, multi-unit, heritage and anything unusual gets the widest error.
What overpricing actually costs
Listing high to "leave room to negotiate" sounds harmless. It isn't, and the damage is predictable.
| Week | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Peak attention. Every serious buyer already looking sees your home now, and prices it against better-priced competition. This window does not come back. |
| 3–5 | Showings thin out. Agents stop suggesting it. The listing starts being used to sell other homes by comparison. |
| 6–9 | First price reduction. It reads as weakness, not value: buyers now wait for the next one instead of writing. |
| 10+ | Stale. Offers arrive below where a correctly priced launch would have landed, and negotiating leverage has moved entirely to the buyer. |
The pattern is consistent: homes priced to the market sell faster and closer to asking than homes that start high and chase the market down. You can absolutely choose to test a higher number, but you should choose it knowing this is the trade, not because someone told you it was free.
Nine questions to ask any agent
Bring this list to every listing appointment, including mine. The answers tell you more than the presentation does.
- Can I see every comparable you used, including the ones that don't support your number?
- What adjustments did you make to each one, and why?
- What is currently active that competes with my home, and how do we beat it?
- What are days on market and sale-to-list ratio doing in my segment right now?
- What is your written plan and what dates are on it?
- At what point do we review the price, and what will trigger a change?
- What is your commission, what does it cover, and what is not included?
- What preparation would you do, and what would you deliberately skip?
- Can I speak to three past sellers, including one whose sale was difficult?
One more thing
If the honest answer for your situation is wait, I will tell you to wait. Sometimes the right move is three months of preparation, or a different season, or not selling at all this year. That advice costs me a commission today and it is still the advice I will give you.
A real valuation with the comparables attached, walked through in person. No obligation and no listing presentation unless you ask for one.
General information for Ottawa-area homeowners, current at time of writing. Not an appraisal, and not legal, tax or financial advice. Market conditions change. Not intended to solicit sellers currently under contract with another brokerage.