HEADLINES DON'T BUY HOUSES
Every week there is a new number in Toronto Real Estate market. Sales down. Rates holding. Inventory climbing. It's worth knowing, and it tells you almost nothing about your house.Toronto is not one market. A renovated semi near the TTC in Bloor Village and a bungalow on a busy road in The Junction that needs a roof are not competing for the same buyer, and they do not move on the same timeline. Market commentary is weather. Your house is a specific address on a specific Saturday.NAME YOUR THREE BUYERS
Here is the exercise I ask sellers to do before we talk about price. If your house went up this weekend, who are the three people most likely to make an offer, and what does each of them want from it?- The young family who needs to be near the school in Swansea and will not care about the kitchen for two years
- The downsizer who wants the main floor to work and the yard to be small
- The buyer who sees a project, prices the project, and offers accordingly
FOUR QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU LIST
Rather than reading the market, read the four things that decide what happens to your house specifically.
1. Who is looking?
Which buyers are actively shopping in your price band right now. Ask: who has been showing up to the open houses on this street?
2. What they can borrow?
Financing sets the ceiling long before taste does. The same house has a different top offer at different rates. Ask: what monthly payment does my price actually require?
3. What else they'll see?
Your competition is the four listings a buyer walks through in the same afternoon, not last year's sales. Ask: against those four, where does mine finish?
4. What your house is for?
Move-in ready, room to grow, or a project with upside. Buyers decide this in about eight seconds, and it changes the number.Ask: which one am I, and does my listing say so?
THE SHORT VERSION
- Market headlines give you context. They don't give you a price.
- Buyers are still buying. They're just choosier and slower about it.
- Knowing who your three likely buyers are beats guessing where the market goes.
- Money spent on the wrong buyer is money you don't get back at closing.
THINKING ABOUT LISTING YOUR HOME?
The most useful conversations happen months before anything goes up. If you want to walk through who would likely buy your house and what it would take to be the best thing they see that weekend, I'm happy to do that with no expectation of a listing at the end of it.
From the desk of Nick Pavlov · Pavlov Real Estate · Toronto
