The question I hear most often at a listing appointment is "how did you come up with that number?" It deserves a straight answer, because the price we put on your home decides almost everything that follows: how many buyers see it, how seriously they treat it, and whether we negotiate from strength or from a listing that has gone stale. This is the actual method I use, step by step, so you know exactly what goes into the number and why it matters.
The Only Numbers That Matter Are the Ones That Sold
We always start with sales, not asking prices. No offence to neighbours who still have their listing live, but an asking price is an opinion. A sold price is a fact. So I pull the recent comparable sales for your area, the last 90 days or so, and I look at homes that truly compare: same style, same size range, same pocket of the town. In East Gwillimbury the pocket matters. A home in Sharon or Queensville can sit in a different market from one in Mount Albert or Holland Landing even when the square footage is close, and buyers here know it. Their agents price against it, and so do we. That is why I build the full East Gwillimbury market picture before I ever put a number on paper.
Adjustments: No Two Homes Are Identical, Even When They Look It
Rarely does a comparable sale match your house exactly, and that is where the real work happens. I adjust for the differences: one more bathroom, a legal basement apartment, a wider lot, a garage that fits two cars instead of one, a renovation that was done properly versus a patch job, backing onto green space instead of a busy road. Every adjustment carries a range that can be defended, because buyers in this market pay for some features and quietly discount others. You should never be handed a price you can't see the reasoning for. If a Realtor cannot show you how they travelled from the comparable sales to their number, you are holding a guess with a good presentation behind it.
Market Conditions Set the Band You Can Ask For
The comparable sales tell us what a similar home has been worth recently. Market conditions tell us how much room we have inside that evidence right now: how many months of inventory the area is carrying, how many similar homes are for sale at this moment, and how long the average listing takes to sell. When supply is tight, buyers compete and a well-priced home draws attention fast. When buyers have choices, they compare ruthlessly, and in a balanced market the listing that sits is almost always the one priced ahead of the evidence. I wrote about the three signs a home is priced above what the market will pay for exactly this reason: the fix starts with admitting which side of the evidence you are on.
The method is the same in every market. What changes is the position you take inside the band, and that decision is mine to make with you, honestly, rather than to please you.
The Launch Strategy: One Price, One Shot
This is where I part ways with the "let's list it high and see what happens" school of selling. A home gets one launch window, roughly the first two to three weeks on market, and it is the period when buyer interest is at its absolute peak. Everyone who might buy your house sees it when it is new. Overpricing burns that window. Buyers appear, recognize a price the market will not support, and move on to the next listing, and meanwhile the calendar starts collecting days on market.
By week three or four the same house at the same price reads stale, and now you are negotiating from a weaker position than the one you had on day one. I set the price once, from evidence, and I protect the launch window like it matters, because it does. The sellers who do well in this market are not the ones who aimed high and corrected later; they are the ones who launched at a price the market recognized from the start.
What I Do Differently
I have been doing this since 2007, and I have sold more homes in East Gwillimbury than any other Realtor over the past 10 years. Across my whole career, in every town I serve, that adds up to 700+ homes and counting. That record is not a coincidence; it is the outcome of a process. Before we list, we sit down with the comparables together so you see the evidence with your own eyes and agree on the number as a team, not because I promised you a price you wanted to hear.
I will also tell you the truth when the market says we missed: a price correction early, done once and done properly, protects the launch far better than watching a listing age. Pricing, preparation and presentation, marketing, negotiation: they are one system on my side, and I run it the way I describe on my selling process page. The number on the sign is where that system starts.
The Honest Answer to "How Did You Come Up With That Number?"
Any Realtor should be able to answer that question in plain language: here are the comparables, here are the adjustments, here is the market position, and here is the launch plan. If you sit through a listing presentation and walk out unable to explain the price to your own partner, that is a warning sign, not a compliment. Don't worry, I have done this a time or two; this isn't my first rodeo. But you should still understand the number you are putting your family's home on the market at, and I will make sure you do.
Thanks, Lee :)