Cell: 365.855.6477
Office: 905.892.0222
ved@royallepage.ca
Head Office
#1-1815 Merrittville Hywy
Fonthill, ON, L2V 5P3
Selling in Niagara
What selling a home actually looks like
Most seller pages are a list of adjectives and a photo of a sold sign. This one is the part people get caught out by: what comes out of the sale price before anything reaches your account, and why the number you list at decides how many buyers ever see the house at all.
Read it before we meet and the listing appointment starts about three steps further along.
The whole thing, end to end
Six stages
Every sale runs through the same six. This page covers the first two, because they are the ones that decide whether the rest goes smoothly. The other four arrive by email, one at a time, once we are working together — nobody needs a photography checklist in week one.
01DecidingWhat the sale actually nets you, what you are optimising for, and how involved you want to be.
02PricingComparables, the bracket you list in, and how many buyers ever come and look.
03PreparingRepairs, photography, and settling what stays and what goes.
04On marketShowings, feedback, and the two-week test.
05OffersPrice, dates, deposit, conditions — and what you can push back on.
06Firm to closeLawyer, adjustments, moving day, keys.
Ground rules
What you can expect from me
- I give you the price the comparables support, not the price that wins me the listing. Those are frequently not the same number.
- You get the sales behind that price — what actually sold and for how much, not a list of what the neighbours are asking.
- I tell you what a buyer will find wrong with the house early, while there is still time to fix it or price for it.
- Every offer that arrives gets presented to you. All of them, whatever I think of them.
- Before you spend money on the house, I will tell you what it is likely to return — including when the honest answer is nothing.
- I am a REALTOR®, not a lawyer, a stager or a contractor. I will introduce you to good ones and stay out of their lane.
- You will always know who I represent in a transaction, in writing, before it matters.
- If the right answer is to wait, or to fix something first, or not to sell at all, I will say so. I would rather you sell well next spring than badly this month.
The detail, by topic
Pick what you actually need
Six topics, one at a time, so you are not scrolling past six things to reach the one you came for. Most people start with the money.
Stage 01 · The money
What comes out of the price
The sale price is the number everyone talks about. The number that matters is what is left after that price has been through your lawyer's trust account. These are the four deductions that get it there.
Commission + HSTAgreed in writing before the house is advertised, paid from the proceeds on closing. HST at 13% applies on top of whatever the number is.
$1,200–$2,000Lawyer. Discharging the mortgage, the adjustments, the transfer. More with a condo, a second mortgage or an estate sale.
$0–$400Mortgage discharge — your lender's administration fee, plus roughly $85 to register it. Any penalty is separate, and much bigger.
AdjustmentsProperty tax, utilities, condo fees, prepaid rent — settled to the closing date. This is the one that occasionally goes in your favour.
The one that surprises people: the penalty for breaking a mortgage part-way through its term. On a variable it is usually three months' interest. On a fixed it is the greater of three months' interest or an interest rate differential, which can run into thousands. Call your lender before you list — ask for the exact figure, and ask whether you can port the mortgage to your next place instead. Not the week before closing, when the number has stopped being a choice.
Why percentages are worth converting to dollars
On an $800,000 sale, every one percent of commission is $8,000, and HST adds $1,040 on top of it. That is the whole of the arithmetic. Whatever we agree goes into the listing agreement in writing before the house is advertised, so it is worth doing that sum out loud together rather than nodding at a percentage on a page.
Where the money goes, in order
| What | When | Rough size |
|---|---|---|
| Commission + 13% HST | On closing, from the proceeds | Set in the listing agreement before the house is advertised |
| Legal fees and disbursements | On closing | $1,200–$2,000 |
| Mortgage discharge | On closing | $0–$400 admin, plus about $85 to register |
| Prepayment penalty | On closing, only if you break a term early | Three months' interest, or the rate differential on a fixed |
| Tax and utility adjustments | On closing | Varies, and can go either way |
| Getting the house ready | Before it goes live | Nothing to several thousand — your call, made against real numbers |
| Moving | Moving day | $1,000–$3,000 for a local move |
Three that catch people out
HST on the sale itself
A resale home is exempt. A new build, or one that has been substantially renovated, may not be. If your house has been through a rebuild rather than a refresh, raise it with your accountant before you sign anything.
Capital gains
Your principal residence is exempt. A cottage, a rental, or a property you did not live in for the whole time you owned it is not — and that bill arrives the following April, long after the proceeds have been spent. Get the number before you list.
Selling as a non-resident
If you are not a resident of Canada for tax purposes, the buyer's lawyer holds back part of the sale price — commonly 25% — until the CRA issues a clearance certificate. That can take months. Start it the day you decide to sell.
Fees, thresholds and tax rules change, and all of this depends on your own circumstances. Confirm the figures with your lawyer, your lender and your accountant before you rely on them. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice.
See what your neighbours actually sold for · Ask for an opinion of value on your own home
Stage 02 · The price
Who even sees it
Overpricing does not get you more money. It gets you a smaller audience. This is the arithmetic underneath every pricing conversation we are going to have — the share of the buyers who could afford your home who ever come and look at it.
15% above market
15%
Only 15% of the buyers who could afford your home will ever come and look at it.
10% above market
32%
Two thirds of your market never gets as far as your driveway.
At market
70%
Where the conversation starts, and where competition becomes possible.
10% below market
72%
Two more points of audience, bought with real money.
15% below market
92%
Nearly everybody comes — and you have given away the difference before the first offer arrives.
Two things follow from that. The buyers you lose at the top are lost silently — nobody rings to say your price kept them away, so a quiet first fortnight reads like bad luck when it is usually arithmetic. And below market, the last few points of audience get expensive fast: the jump from 70% to 72% costs a great deal more than it buys.
Three ways to price, and what each is for
Hope · above market
Priced above the recent comparables, aimed at one specific buyer who has to fall in love with it. Needs a genuine reason the comparables have missed, and maximum patience.
Compete · at market
Priced in line with what has actually sold. Captures the buyers already shopping in that bracket. Steady momentum, and the ground on which competition can happen at all.
Urgency · below market
Priced slightly under fair market value to create scarcity, drive viewings and give competing offers somewhere to start. High momentum, and it needs a real plan for offer night.
Whichever we pick, we look at it again after two weeks. Showings and offers are the only honest test of a price. Traffic but no offers is usually the house or the presentation. No traffic at all is the price, every time.
Three decisions I need from you
Most of a sale is my job. These three are yours, and nearly everything else follows from them.
One: choose two of three
- Price — the highest possible net return.
- Speed — sold as quickly as possible.
- Preparation — the least spent on prep, marketing and selling costs.
We can optimise for two. The third adjusts itself to the market. Anyone promising all three is selling you the listing rather than the house.
Two: the price, knowing the levers
- Price and presentation — yours to decide.
- Marketing and access — mine to run.
- The neighbourhood — nobody's. It gets priced in, not argued with.
Four of the five are fixable in an afternoon. Price is the one that carries the others, which is why it gets a whole section on this page.
And the third: how involved you want to be — in all of it, at the decision points only, or handed the keys back at the end. There is no wrong answer. I would just rather know on day one than guess for eight weeks.
Before the offer, not during it
What stays and what goes
This is the most common argument on offer night and it is entirely avoidable. Ontario draws a line between fixtures and chattels — roughly, if it is attached to the house it stays, and if it is not, it goes. Roughly stops being good enough once there is money on the table, so we write it down instead.
Usually stays — fixtures
- Light fixtures and ceiling fans
- Built-in dishwasher, built-in microwave, range hood
- Furnace, central air, hot water tank, central vac
- Garage door opener — with the remotes
- Curtain rods, rails and blind hardware
- A shed on a foundation, and anything bolted down
Usually goes — chattels
- Fridge, stove, washer, dryer, freezer
- The curtains and blinds themselves
- The TV wall mount — a perennial favourite
- Hot tub, pool equipment, wine fridge, projector and screen
- Hanging mirrors and anything on a hook
- Anything you bought, love, and intend to take with you
Two rules that prevent every version of this fight. Anything you are keeping comes out of the house before the photographer arrives — a buyer cannot miss what they never saw. And anything rented or financed — hot water tank, furnace, water softener, alarm, solar panels — gets disclosed with the contract and the monthly cost, because the buyer is being asked to take it on. An undisclosed rental gets found by the buyer's lawyer at the worst possible moment.
We walk the house together and make the list room by room before it goes live. It takes about twenty minutes and it has never once been wasted.
If someone else lives there
Selling with a tenant in place
A tenanted property sells perfectly well. It sells under a different set of rules, and getting those wrong is expensive in a way that has nothing to do with the market.
What does not change
- The lease survives the sale. The buyer inherits the tenant, the rent and the terms exactly as they stand.
- The rent you are collecting is part of what you are selling — to an investor buyer it is most of the value.
- You cannot raise the rent, end the tenancy or change the terms in order to make the property easier to sell.
What you have to do
- Twenty-four hours' written notice before every showing, and showings between 8am and 8pm. The tenant's notice is a legal right, not a courtesy.
- Photography needs the tenant's cooperation in practice. Ask early, be flexible, and budget goodwill.
- Have the leases, the rent record and any rental contracts to hand. A serious investor buyer will ask for all of it.
If your buyer wants it empty, that is an N12, and it is served by you as the landlord — after the deal is firm, at the buyer's request. The purchaser has to be an individual rather than a corporation, buying in good faith to live there for at least a year. Sixty days' written notice, ending on the last day of a rental period, and the tenant is owed one month's rent in compensation or another acceptable unit. Build that time into the closing date. Never promise a buyer vacant possession on a date the Act cannot deliver.
Gather this now
What I will ask you for
None of it is urgent on its own. All of it becomes urgent the evening an offer arrives, which is precisely when nobody can find the survey. Ten minutes with a drawer now saves a bad hour later.
Paper
- Most recent property tax bill
- Land survey, if one exists
- Permits and drawings for any renovation
- Contracts for anything rented or financed — hot water tank, furnace, alarm, solar
- Receipts and warranties for recent work
- Leases and the rent record, if it is tenanted
- Status certificate if it is a condo — the corporation has to provide it within ten days, and the fee is capped at $100 including tax
- Government photo ID for FINTRAC, and a spare set of keys for the lockbox
Numbers a buyer will ask for
- Age of the roof
- Age of the furnace and the central air
- Type of plumbing — copper, PVC, ABS, galvanised steel
- Type of wiring — copper, aluminum, knob and tube
- Capacity of the electrical panel — 60, 100 or 200 amps
- Any major repair in the last five years
- Rough-ins not in use yet — a fireplace, a second bathroom
Three of those decide whether a buyer's insurer will write a policy at all: knob-and-tube wiring, a 60-amp panel, and galvanised plumbing. If your house has any of them I would far rather hear it in your kitchen at the listing appointment than from the buyer's broker on day forty.
The paperwork
What you sign, and when
Ontario changed the rules here in recent years and the order is not optional. Nothing gets signed before you have read what it means.
- The RECO Information Guide comes first. By law I give it to you and walk you through it before you sign anything else. It sets out your options and my obligations in plain language.
- The Seller Designated Representation Agreement (OREA Form 271) is what makes you my client rather than a member of the public — it names me personally as your representative, not just the brokerage. We go through it line by line: the term, the commission, what happens if I end up representing the buyer as well, and the holdover clause, which is the one people skim and later argue about. If you would rather be represented by the brokerage as a whole, that is Form 200, and I will explain the difference before you choose.
- FINTRAC identification. Federal law, every seller, no exceptions. Government photo ID, done once, early.
- The Seller Property Information Statement (Form 220) is optional in Ontario and the choice is yours. What is not optional: a known defect that makes the property unsafe or unfit gets disclosed either way. I will tell you which of yours is which.
- Disclosure of multiple representation, in writing, if I (as your designated representative) end up on both sides of the deal. You will know before it affects a decision, and you can say no.
Recent work
What this looks like in practice
$910,000277 Pancake Lane, Pelham — sold in 14 days.
57Open houses hosted across 2025 and 2026.
175+Buyer groups met at them. I meet your buyer most weekends.
Marketing is the work I did before real estate, and it is still how I think about a listing: a campaign built for the house rather than a photo set and a sign on the lawn. The reason I can tell you what buyers object to in your price bracket is that I stand in rooms like yours on Saturdays and listen to them say it out loud.
Start here
Tell me what you are thinking about
No pressure and no drip campaign. Fill this in and I will come back to you with a straight answer about what your next step should be — even if that answer is that you are a year early. If you would rather just talk, call or text 365-855-6477.
After you send that
What happens next
- Within a day I read what you sent and reply — properly, not with an automated acknowledgement.
- A short call. Twenty minutes. Why you are moving, when you need to be out, and whether the timing actually works.
- A walkthrough of the house. An hour, no pressure, and I tell you what I see rather than what you want to hear.
- A written opinion of value, with the comparables underneath it — what sold and for how much, not what the neighbours are asking.
- A plan for the three decisions — price, speed, preparation — and then the marketing built for the house we actually have.
- The RECO guide and the representation agreement, explained before either of us signs anything.
Call or text 365-855-6477 Property evaluation
Ved Bhat, REALTOR® · Royal LePage NRC Realty, Brokerage · Serving Fonthill, Pelham, Welland, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and the rest of the region.
This website and its content are not intended to solicit properties or clients already under contract, and are provided as general information only — not legal, financial, tax or appraisal advice. Consult a qualified professional about your specific situation. Much of the writing here has been through AI-assisted editing; the ideas, judgment and direction are my own.
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Ved Bhat REALTOR®.
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