May 20, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of The Last Honest Realtor, David Fleming breaks down why offer nights in 2025 are no longer a guaranteed success—and what sellers need to understand about today’s changed landscape.
David walks us through a real West End listing and its bumpy path to a sale, exposing how outdated pricing strategies, mismatched expectations, and weak agent preparation are colliding with buyer hesitation and rising holding costs.
This isn’t just a market update—it’s a field report from the front lines of Toronto real estate. From psychology to pricing to presentation, David outlines how to adapt, why homes are sitting, and what agents and sellers must do differently right now.
In This Episode:
- Why offer nights are falling flat—even in prime Toronto neighbourhoods
- How buyer psychology has shifted since 2022
- A step-by-step look at a real listing that struggled, stalled, and eventually sold
- What "relisting" really means in today’s market—and why it works
- Why agents who oversell expectations are doing their clients a disservice
- What sellers must accept if they want to succeed in 2025
Timestamps:
00:00 – Offer nights aren’t working—now what?
05:00 – A real case study: expectations vs. reality
12:00 – Buyer psychology and the rise of wait-and-see
18:00 – Interest rates, media fear, and market limbo
24:00 – Presentation matters more than ever
27:00 – What smart sellers and agents are doing right now
If you’re a Toronto seller wondering why your home didn’t sell—or a buyer watching for the next price drop—this is the episode that connects the dots.
Subscribe, comment, or share your experience in the market below. Let’s keep it honest.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
So your house did not sell on offer date last
night as expected, but guesswhat?
It can sell tomorrow or the nextday or the day after.
Hello folks and welcome back tothe Last Honest Realtor podcast.
I'm your host David Fleming.
Thank you for joining me todayas we examine why selling your
home in 2025 feels so differentand oh so much harder.
(00:22):
Now the example I gave in theopening there is a common one.
A lot of houses are not sellingon the offer dates and it's
catching a lot of sellers bysurprise.
Now when I say house of course Imean freehold.
We can talk about the condomarket which we will but
specifically in that holy grailof housing the freehold and and
especially in that what I wouldcall central Toronto,
(00:44):
entry-level starter home pricedbetween 900 and 1.3 roughly,
there are a lot of houses nothitting their offer dates.
Now, I want to go right into anexample.
One of my listings that Irecently had to speak from
experience and underscore thepreparation that's involved,
which unfortunately a lot oflisting agents are not doing
with their clients, but also thethought process and the
(01:05):
psychology, what it's like to bea seller as you go through this
process.
So I have a listing.
Let's say it's in the$1.3million.
We do what we always do.
We spend time getting it readyfor sale.
There are some old carpets we'llrip up.
We'll put in some new flooring.
Easy peasy.
Kitchen counter, absolutely noproblem.
(01:25):
We take everything out of thehouse.
We put it all in storage.
We stage it.
We paint it.
We clean it.
We market it.
We do all the wonderful thingsthat we typically do.
And suffice it to say, the homeis ready to be sold.
Now we put it on the market.
And of course, guess what?
There's fewer showings than weexpected.
Now again, I talk aboutpreparation.
Very, very important for you asa real estate agent to sit down
(01:46):
with your clients, proverbially,of course.
I always list on a Monday orTuesday, and I always have a
conversation night before, and Ilay out the expectations.
Guys, the first day of thelisting, I'd like to have four
to five showings booked.
Now, not through the house, butbooked.
We just looked at bookedsemantics, but more importantly,
the second day of the listing.
That's when I would like to seesix to eight booked, because the
(02:08):
second day of the listing, well,that's when most people have
looked at it online, the agentshave emailed it, and they're
getting ready to go.
Now, they might book for theweekend, that's fine, but by the
end of those first two days, I'dlike to see roughly between
eight and 15 showings.
Now, the conversation goes on,and I say, at the end, for this
house that's listed at 15,$1,089,000, where we're looking
(02:29):
for 1.3 with an offer date, Iwould like to see about 30
showings when all is said anddone.
Now, let's say that this startsa little slowly.
We have two showings booked onthe first day.
And let's say that the secondday, which we expect to be our
big showing day, we have threeshowings booked.
Now, this is very typical inthis market.
Showings are down.
I've discussed this a lotthrough the podcast and through
(02:50):
Toronto Realty Blog over thelast couple of weeks.
But...
All is not lost.
As I am going through thisprocess with my sellers and
educating them on the fly,because it doesn't necessarily
meet with our expectation.
Hey guys, we're gonna have 30showings in total.
We're gonna have six to eightthe second day.
I'm talking to colleagues, whichagain is paramount for any agent
in this industry.
And an agent in my office whoshall remain nameless tells me
(03:13):
she had 18 showings and threeoffers.
Hey, three offers on 18, that'spretty good.
Then I talk to an agent, verywell known, on the east side,
who says that for her eightoffer melee, eight offers she
had on a listing, she only had24 showings.
Okay, so off to the races weare.
Now, the rest of this process,it does not play out as
(03:35):
expected.
Sellers are super nervous.
We've only had two people askfor a copy of the home
inspection so far, and by thetime we get to the weekend,
they're on edge.
Now, The weekend's great.
We have a ton of people throughthe open house.
And here's another thing youhave to remember.
There are a lot of buyers thatwill go through on the open
house without their agents.
I actually got a call from anagent who said that he was in
(03:58):
Europe and his clients camethrough the open house both
Saturday and Sunday.
He's on a flight coming home andwe have offers on a Monday.
This guy lands, I don't know howthe math works here, but lands
at like nine in the morning onMonday and then goes and books a
preview on the property fornoon.
We've got offers at six o'clock.
He didn't end up offering, butmore on that in a moment.
(04:19):
Now, the people are comingthrough the open house.
We have 15 groups on theSaturday.
We have 10 groups on the Sunday.
Everything's looking great.
Then we get to the offer date,six o'clock.
Now, what used to happen?
Here's the disconnect, andhere's where agents, whether
it's myself or anybody else, hasto talk to their sellers in
(04:40):
advance.
We're not getting 10 offers.
Once upon a time, This house,and like honestly guys, even
February of 2024, I had alisting on Westwood.
We were 9.99, we sold it for amillion four.
I think I had eight offers.
That was a year and three monthsago.
This is this year.
(05:00):
What it's not is 2022 or 2021.
We're not getting 15 offers inthis house.
We're not getting 10, we're notgetting eight, we're not getting
six.
Every agent that called me aboutthis property and they said,
what are you expecting fortonight?
And that's a very buyer agentthing to do.
I said zero to three offers.
That's about as honest as I canbe.
So if I say, oh, I'm expecting10 offers, because some of you
(05:21):
are like, David, why would yoube so honest?
If I say I'm expecting 10offers, what am I really flexing
with?
I'm going to drive them away.
And if I don't drive them away,then they're going to think I
have no idea what I'm talkingabout.
Honesty is important in thismarket, honest to a point.
But if I say zero to three, I'mbeing accurate because I might
have zero.
I don't know that I'm going toget three.
I'd love it, but that agent isprepared.
(05:43):
So four or five agents call me.
I say zero to three offers.
In the end, we get one.
We get one offer.
Now, the house is worth onethree, or I think it is.
Maybe it's not.
You tell me differently.
We're listed at a million, whatdid I say, 1,089?
We get an offer for 1,180,000.
So it's 100 grand over list, butit's 120,000 below for all
(06:06):
intents and purposes what thishouse is worth or what the agent
should believe it's worth.
But as that buyer agent, some ofyou are thinking, why would he
offer over list?
You're not getting it for1,089,000.
You know you're not.
It's listed low with an offerdate.
No seller has to accept thatbid.
I know there are some people outthere that are saying, every
seller should have to take everyoffer that comes in.
(06:28):
I don't believe in offer nightsand underlisting.
Okay, cool, conversation foranother day.
But the point is, he did hisjob, he came in Overlist,
nowhere near what we wanted, andhe said to me, David,
everything's negotiable.
So I call the clients, they'rein an absolute panic.
And I'm reminding them what wetalked about beforehand.
The one thing I did not tellyou, because I wanted to save it
for this moment, was that in theconversation about the number of
(06:50):
showings we expect, looking atthings like requests for the
home inspection as an indicationof interest, I tell my clients
the brutal, honest truth.
We have a 50-50 shot of sellingthis on the offer night.
I don't think people are tellingtheir clients that.
I think the major disconnect inthis market, and again, I'm
(07:14):
talking entry-level semis,right?
Or if you want the 1.6 semi andlease side, whatever it is.
In an area where you could havea$2.5 million detached, but it
happens to be so incrediblysought after, point is, the list
low offer date strategy, 50-50.
Agents aren't telling theirclients that, and it's setting
them up for disappointment.
(07:35):
It's setting the entire processup for failure.
So we get the one offer for amillion 180.
I say to my clients, guys,remember, we said there's a
50-50 shot.
And of course they're freakingout, right?
It's like, poof, amnesia.
Yes, we had this discussion,David, but here we are.
I cannot believe this.
The agent says to me,everything's negotiable.
So I started to talk to theclients about what to do.
(07:56):
They say, well, let's get themup in price.
Here's the thing.
You catch more flies with honeyand you've got to work in the
market that you're in.
And in this case, it's not 2022where you call 32 people or
blast out a mass email and say,we're sending you all back.
Here's where if you say to thatagent, can you come up in price?
He's going to say, yeah, but whywould we?
(08:19):
You give us a sign back.
Now, my clients said, why wouldwe sign it back?
It's an offer night.
Very true.
Very good point.
Very fair.
And this is where a lot oflisting agents are going wrong
because they're saying, yeah,totally, absolutely.
Let's tell them they have tocome up.
The buyers aren't going to doit.
They're not going to bid againstthemselves, nor should they.
(08:42):
Now, this agent said to me,listen, we've made you an offer.
The ball's in your court.
You can respond to us.
Exactly what he should havedone.
So we signed it back at 1.3 andthey came up to 1.210 and that
was it.
Now the sellers were not happy,I think that goes without
saying, and no matter how much Iprepared them for the fact that
their house might not sell onoffer date, all of a sudden now
(09:02):
it's here and it's real.
So as a seller you say thingslike, no one loves our house,
our showings were down, what didwe do wrong, I can't believe we
only got this much, are weheaded for financial ruin?
No, you're not, you've got aJuly closing date, you're fine.
You could sell your house inthree or four weeks.
Now the sellers of course aregonna go crazy and they're gonna
say, we can't do that.
(09:23):
Nor should they have to.
But the point is, the next day,the world continues to spin.
And this is a saying I've alwayshad.
I say to people, guys, if yourhouse doesn't sell on offer
date, tomorrow you wake up, theworld is still turning.
And yes, it is.
So I wrote a blog, I think itwas last year, about, no, I
think it was earlier this year,about selling on offer date,
(09:45):
strategy A, Selling in betweenoffer date and relist, the limbo
period as I call it, strategy B,and then selling after the
relist, strategy C.
You have to have all those threestrategies in advance.
And damn if I don't keepshammering on this point.
But listing agents, you have tohave this conversation with your
sellers.
So the next day, the phonerings.
(10:06):
As expected, it always does.
Five people call and ask, hey,did you sell last night?
Those are interested sellers.
agents with interested buyers.
Now, if you immediately relist,you don't get those phone calls
because they know that.
Now, I know there are a bunch ofagents that listen to the
podcast, so they will understandexactly where I'm coming from
here when I say the toughestthing for a listing agent after
(10:27):
a failed offer date is the nextday when agents call to inquire
because they have a is so hard,that is one of the hardest
things.
Imagine this, the phone rings.
Hey, David, I'm calling aboutyour listing at 123 Fake Street.
And you're like, yeah?
They're like, did you guys selllast night?
(10:47):
You're like, no, we didn't.
They're like, really?
And you think, oh my God,they've got a buyer.
And then they're like, becauseI'm actually prepping a listing
up the street from yours.
And you're like, oh.
That's a tough one.
I had about five of those calls.
So I have five agents that callme and ask if we sold.
I have five agents that call andask if we sold because they've
got a listing coming out.
And all the while, my clients,of course, are freaking out.
(11:08):
What are we going to do?
And I'm saying, guys, listen,we're in that in-between period.
We're in the limbo.
People are going to call andthey do.
Now I end up with two or threepretty interested parties, but
one in particular, the one Imentioned where The agent was in
Europe and flew back and saw it.
This is the one that I'm bankingon.
Now, I keep in touch with thembecause they go and make an
(11:30):
offer on another property, getabsolutely blown out.
There are properties that aregetting 16 offers and this one
happened to.
And by the time we get towardsthe end of the week, we need to
relist.
You can only stay at your$1,089,000 underlist so long.
So we come back out at$1,299,000.
I'm going to give you the endingof this story pretty quickly
(11:51):
without much drama.
We sold it to those people for$1,290,000.
So all's well that ends well.
Now, you could say, well, hangon.
You said$1,300,000.
It was$1,290,000.
Listen,$1,300,000 is$1,320,000is$1,280,000.
The point is, guys, we got itsold for what it was worth, but
it wasn't easy.
And this is what I wrote.
(12:11):
Why selling your home in 2025feels so different and so much
harder?
If you were in a differentjurisdiction somewhere else on
planet Earth and you complainedthat it took you 11 days to sell
your home, they would think thatyou're crazy.
But this is the point I'm makingtoday.
It feels so much harder.
(12:32):
Is it harder?
It's a different strategy.
We did what we always do.
We got the property ready.
We put it up.
We underlisted it.
We held an offer date.
We didn't sell an offer date.
That was Monday.
We sold it on Thursday.
We sold it three days after ouroffer date for what it was
worth.
But man, it was not easy to getthere.
(12:53):
So guys, that was a littlelonger lead-in than perhaps any
of us expected.
Here's where we're at in thismarket.
Sellers are running on oldassumptions.
The gap between sellerexpectation and buyer behavior
is widening by the week.
And this point cannot beunderstated.
Sellers' expectations, which arebased on agents leading them
(13:16):
astray or agents not reiningthem back in and the unrealistic
desire for a price from twoyears ago that is ever present
in our market.
And the buyers are looking atwhat's happening and they're
kind of veering off in the otherdirection.
Now homes are sitting longer andit's not because they're flawed,
it's because the buyers aren'tmoving quickly.
(13:39):
In the case that I mentionedwith the exceptionally long
lead-in story, I did talk to afew agents that when I said,
hey, are you coming in on offernight?
They said, I think my buyers aregonna take a wait and see.
I talked to a bunch of agentsthat said my buyers don't do
offer nights.
So call me a salesperson, butI've always said it's better to
overpay for a house you lovethan to underpay for a house you
(14:02):
like.
Now, if the strategy for a buyeris, I wanna look at every house
and the ones that don't hit ontheir offer dates and are
relisted and sit on the market,I wanna go for one of those.
Listen, you might get yourself agood deal, but is that the house
that you absolutely love?
Remember, yes, it's aninvestment, but you're also
living in there.
Now, relisting is back infashion and savvy buyers are
(14:23):
watching days on market likehawks.
Days on market add up.
Buyers have access, whether it'sto House Sigma or any of the
other apps or the savvy agentsthat are educating them on it.
You can take a listing, arelisting that's been on the
market for five days and lookback and see it was in the
market for 55 days before that.
They get it.
And Matthew, who's on my team,was telling me he's working with
(14:44):
a buyer where their strategy isthat there are two houses listed
on the same block.
Now, one of them has an offerdate and it doesn't hit.
And Matthew calls them and says,you know, what kind of price are
you looking for?
This agent's absolutely out tolunch, starts going like this.
For those of you listening, I'mdoing a yeah, yeah, yeah with my
fingers.
And Matthew says, listen,there's literally a house 10
blocks, sorry, 10 houses up.
(15:06):
And that agent has said hisclients have bought firm, they
need to sell.
That guy's rolling out the redcarpet.
What are you going to do for me?
The end of this story is thatthe agent did more yeah, yeah,
yeah, blah, blah.
Matthew literally moved on tothe other house.
That listing agent, who thinksit's 2022, cost his seller a
sale.
But the point is, this is a reallive story with young Matthew on
the team, who has clients thatare watching on Days on Market,
(15:27):
who has clients that are lookingat the opportunity for
competition in the same block,And they're running with it.
Now, many sellers are stillthinking in 2021 dollars or 2022
or even 2023.
Well, buyers are negotiatinglike it's 2018.
Okay, I might have fudged theyears there just to kind of
demonstrate, okay, buyers aren'tthinking it's 2018.
(15:47):
But what a lot of buyers aredoing, and I don't really want
to get into the condo marketbecause that's like a whole
other podcast.
But there are buyers in thecondo market that, for example,
I've got a listing at 639.9.
We got an offer last night.
for 590.
I talked to the agent on theweekend.
He said, my client has apre-approval of 600.
I said, we're not interested.
(16:08):
Now, I've done podcasts beforeabout how you always invite the
offer.
That was me already negotiating.
But the guy came in at 590.
Okay, off to the races, I guess.
Now, when he said my client is apre-approval for 600, his offer
was conditional on financing,status certificate, home
inspection for a condo, I knowwe'll get him up.
My goal there is to get 620 forthis place.
(16:28):
But point is, they had noproblem coming$50,000 below list
on this place when it's onlybeen on the market for 14 days.
Now, the frustration is real,but the market has moved on and
the sellers that don't recognizethat shift are already falling
behind.
So this market is not declining.
Don't think that when I'm sayingand they're falling behind.
And I had one seller who said, Idon't wanna chase the market
(16:52):
down.
The market's not going down.
The market's completely flat.
I might argue that month overmonth, two months in a row, the
market's up.
Okay, but it's also primespring.
So we're not chasing the marketdown, but what we are doing as
sellers is we're getting furtherbehind.
So once upon a time, if you hada stale listing 30 days in the
market, people assume there'ssomething wrong with it.
Yes, there are buyers that canbe targeting that, but as a
(17:15):
seller, your listing just fallsfurther and further out of
favor.
Now, what is driving this shift?
This isn't about one bigvariable.
It's a combination of subtlepressure points that are finally
adding up.
So the first thing I wanna lookat is interest rates.
Interest rates haven't droppedto matter.
The minor cuts are more symbolicthan practical.
And if I go back to last fall,and I can admit when I'm wrong,
(17:38):
last fall, specifically lastsummer, when we first started to
see the cuts, I said, okay,people are going to get ahead of
this because when super cuts areenacted, prices will shoot up.
The savvy buyer goes out andthey buy in June, July, August
of 2024 in advance of all thecuts.
Well, the fall market didn'ttake off like I expected it to
(17:59):
because what I realized is thatnot everybody thinks like me.
Go figure.
People want to wait until thecuts are there.
They don't want to buy ahead ofthe cuts, right?
Wayne Gretzky, what does he say?
Go to where the puck is going,right?
A quarterback will not throw tothe player.
He'll throw to where they'rerunning to.
That's a pretty good analogy,don't you think?
So that is what I thought wouldhappen.
(18:19):
Then, of course, we got in thespring of this year and I was
all geared up and then cameTrump and tariffs and election
and all this stuff, not makingexcuses.
But I think the point is a lotof folks are waiting...
to see the Bank of Canada hit2%.
Down from 5%, some quick math,yes, you've reduced the interest
rate by 60%.
I think that is what we'rewaiting for.
Now, buyers are selective andcautious.
Everyone has seen the headlinesand they're hedging.
(18:42):
And I think that it's very hardto buy into a market where the
media attention is constantlynegative.
I mean, there's a...
I get the Toronto Star emailthat has kind of like a summary
of all the real estate articlesin the week.
And their headline, among abunch of different headlines,
was about the condo marketcollapse.
How do you go and buy a condowhen you're seeing the word
collapse?
(19:02):
Now, the pre-construction markethas collapsed, which of course I
called for the last 15 years.
But point being, how do you goand buy into a market when
you're seeing headlines likethat?
Now, the holding costs areclimbing.
For sellers carrying vacant orstaged homes, time is expensive.
And another point...
that I wanna make here is thatbecause holding costs are
(19:22):
climbing and it's taking longerto sell, here's where some
selling agents are saying, Idon't wanna spend any money.
Now, I have 13 listings rightnow.
Every one of my listings isstaged, okay?
I spend money to make money.
In a down market, in an upmarket, in a balanced market, I
(19:42):
do not change what I do becauseI believe in the model.
But that's me.
There are a lot of agents outthere right now that are saying,
we used to list a property, holdoffer date, and sell it.
I don't wanna be on the hook forabsurd staging costs.
I understand that, but that'snot what we do, or at least
that's not what I do.
So yes, my expenses are way upbecause properties are taking
(20:06):
longer to sell, but agents inthe industry aren't following
along.
So now you've got a toughmarket, you've got a tough sell,
and then your offering lookslike crap.
It's vacant.
It's dirty.
It's tenanted.
Well, the tenanted thing youcan't do anything about, but
it's lived in.
And it's on the market againstnine other listings, five of
(20:30):
which are beautiful and staged.
Now is not the time for agentsto get cheap.
And what I'm seeing over andover again is that the sellers
that are carrying these or thesellers are obviously incurring
costs, but the listing agentsjust don't want it.
to spend the money.
Now, digital exposure isn'tworking like it used to.
A great listing today isn't justin the mix.
(20:51):
I think that people have to geta little bit more creative.
I was just talking to Lindsayoff camera and she said, we've
got one listing that's not doingwell.
She said, you've got to knowLindsay, we're getting an effing
ice cream truck.
That was her idea.
I said, you know what?
Yeah, we should.
Let's do that.
Now, we had one where we got outthe Bosley bike.
The Bosley bike is one of thoselike ice cream, how would I
(21:15):
describe it?
You know, it holds ice cream.
Sorry, I'm not feeling verycreative today.
It's not a truck, but we had oneof those at an open house.
A lot of people showed up.
Now, I don't know that any ofthem were going to buy the
house, but for that particularlisting, guess what?
Someone that lived across thestreet, whose door we knocked
on, told their friend, and thefriend came and bought it.
(21:36):
You gotta think outside the box.
When the market's absolutelyripping, sure, you can put your
thing on MLS and just wait.
Sit back, get a lawn chair.
But in a market like this, youhave to do things.
And Lindsey with the ice creamtruck, I'm literally gonna go
back there in about 10 minutesand she will have an entire
price list and she'll have fourdifferent vendors and I just
absolutely know how she doesthings.
So the result of all this, guys,is that homes that should sell
(21:59):
are being ignored.
Not because of what they are,but because of what the market
isn't anymore.
And I've always said that youhave to work in the market that
you're in.
Don't think it's something else,don't work in a past market,
don't try to work in a futuremarket.
You're trying to forecast whereit's going, you have absolutely
no idea.
And even if you knew withcertainty, you're still not in
that market.
So the sellers are acting likeit's years ago.
(22:20):
The buyers, they're certainly,certainly trying to take
advantage.
And I always do look inwardfirst.
I blame the action or inactionof a lot of the listing agents.
Now, the new seller's playbook.
There is still a market, but itrewards precision, not momentum.
Price needs to be accurate onday one.
(22:41):
Testing the ceiling just meansburning your best week.
Burning your best week.
Your best week is the firstweek.
So let's say, oh, I don't know.
Let's say Tara and I go in andwe meet a builder and the
builder says, well, I think myhouse is worth X.
Now builders always price 20%above market.
(23:02):
And we of course say, if youwant to price at four and a half
million, reduced to 4.3, reducedto 4.1, reduced to 3.9 and sell
for 3.7, nine months from now,we're not the agents for you.
Now, It's gonna be tough forthat builder to hire us because
that's what builders do.
(23:24):
But what I'm seeing is thatbuilder mentality is playing out
in the resale market wherepeople are saying, I wanna test
the ceiling.
Now, once upon a time, you don'tknow if your house that you
think is worth a million bucksCould you get$1,020,000,
$1,050,000?
What could you get?
You price it at$749,900 with anoffer date.
(23:44):
Oh my God, you got$1.1 million.
Thank God you didn't list at amillion with offers any time.
We're not in that market.
But sellers still just aren'twilling to let go of the ceiling
that just doesn't exist.
So now you've got that housethat's worth a million.
(24:05):
And you're not gonna list it lowwith an offer date.
I mean, in this case, youprobably would, but let's say
that it's in Durham region orsomething.
And so you price it 1,079,000.
But it's not worth it.
It's not worth it.
The comp just sold for 950.
And that's this ceiling thatsellers are trying to strive for
that is so incredibly far out ofreach.
And in turn, they are burningtheir best week.
(24:26):
They're not just burning theirbest week, guys.
They're burning their best monthbecause it takes a while to
reduce.
Now, presentation matters morethan ever.
If it isn't aspirational, it'sforgettable.
And I go back to the point aboutthe holding costs and how these
costs are climbing.
I don't want to cry poor, but mycosts are through the roof this
year.
My job is to sell real estate.
There will be good years and badyears.
(24:47):
There will be different years.
But at the end of the day, mycosts are up because it is
necessitated.
That is what we have to do tosell.
We have to make this thing lookas good as it did in 2023 or
2021 or 2016.
My model's always been the same.
But a lot of these listings arecompletely forgettable, and a
lot of them aren't even gettinglooked at.
(25:08):
Now, strategy needs to be local,not generic.
Timing, staging, Evenphotography should speak to the
micro market.
And I mentioned that we're doingdifferent things to try to think
outside of the box.
Tara and I for a listing didthis awesome drone video
property walkthrough situation.
I have absolutely no idea ifthat was a waste of money or
not, but damn if we weren'tgoing to try it.
(25:31):
You need to elevate your game.
And it's not just the listingagents, it's the sellers too.
So some sellers are saying,yeah, I don't know if I wanna
move out You wanna do this weekof showings and you wanna have
this offer date, but I mean, isit really gonna work?
Do we really need to do that?
Now is not the time to get outof that mentality.
Do whatever it takes.
(25:53):
Now seller psychology is part ofthe pitch.
Buyers want confidence, notdesperation.
And I go back to the mindset ofa seller that decides how this
is gonna go in advance and whenit doesn't go their way, You
know, they start to panic.
Sellers can make bad decisionsif their listing agent isn't
holding their hand through theentire process.
(26:13):
You try to prep them in advance.
And trust me when I saythroughout the process, no
matter how much preparationthere is, there are going to be
bumps along that road.
And there are going to bemoments where they might doubt
you, the agent, or your ability,or your plan, or your process.
But you have to continue to leadthem down the path.
And I used this example earlierof the strategy A listing agent.
(26:34):
with an offer date, doesn'twork.
Strategy B, the limbo period inbetween after the failed offer
date, drumming up interest,doesn't work.
Strategy C, listing, relisting,and you'll get it sold.
That is the new normal in ourmarket.
Agents who succeed this springwill be the ones who stop trying
to win the listing and starthelping clients get through the
noise.
And I can't tell you guys,honestly, I don't know how this
is gonna sound, I've had a lotof, I don't want to say I've
(26:59):
turned down a lot of business.
I've had a lot of sellers that Ihave not connected with because
we just weren't on the samepage.
It's not to say I'm not going tofight and scrape and claw for
that seller, but when we're sofar off base, when sellers say,
I need to get this, and I say, Iunderstand, but that's 20% above
fair market value.
I need this.
I need.
(27:19):
Need doesn't play in thismarket.
Now, what smart sellers aredoing right now.
Okay, we're going to look atthis from the Viewpoint of
sellers, buyers, and agents.
Sellers, look past last year'ssales and focus on today's
traction.
Price sharp, launch clean, andmove decisively.
Hesitation has a cost.
If you're a seller and you'relisting on June 1st, you had
(27:40):
better be paying attention toall of the listings that come
out mid-May onward and what'shappening on their offer nights.
Buyers, you're in a better spotthan you realize.
If something feels right, makeyour move, but make it wisely.
And I would continue to offer...
You've heard this from mebefore.
It's better to overpay for ahouse you love than underpay for
(28:01):
a house you like.
I understand the investmentportion of it.
I understand that you could geta great deal.
But at the end of the day,personally, every property I've
ever bought, I've looked backand said, man, if I had to do it
over, I would pay more just toguarantee it.
Because of course I live thereand I love there.
It's your home.
It's not just an asset.
Now agents, oh agents, lead withclarity.
(28:24):
Be blunt about what's changed.
Clients don't need optimism.
They need options.
Now, sure, they need optimism,but they need realism.
And I have lost listings overprice.
I had one seller, I did a fullpresentation.
I love stats.
I can't tell you how much thatis a part of what I do.
(28:47):
And I said, this is a 1-3, 1-3-5house.
Seller folded her arms acrossher chest and said, If I'm gonna
buy the condo I want to downsizein, I need one six.
That's a lot.
I didn't get that listing.
And it came out on the market.
It was priced too high.
(29:07):
It got zero offers on offernight.
It's been sitting there showingoffers reviewed on April 28th.
It still says that.
And we're in late May.
I don't know if that's panic.
I don't know if that'sdesperation.
I don't know if that'sparalysis.
But they haven't changed theprice.
They haven't increased it yet.
(29:27):
I feel for that seller.
I told her, I understand whatyou want to do, but it might not
be possible.
And I said, if you want to waittwo or three years, I am your
guy.
I will work with you.
Oh, there was so much work thatneeded to be done in the house,
none of which they did, ofcourse.
But I was like, I will bringcontractors in.
We will do this together.
I'm your guy, whether it's todayat market value or two to three
(29:49):
years from now at the price youwant.
And she said, yeah, but then thecondo I want to buy is going to
go up in value.
So I just need to get what Ineed to get.
It's not the market that we'rein.
I wish it was.
So folks, I'm going to end itthere, short and sweet.
I hope you learned a little.
I think I did as I was goingthrough this.
And, you know, I can be verboseand tell a lot of stories.
(30:10):
But it is the stories in thismarket that are driving home the
point.
And one more point to agents,because I know agents listen to
this.
Agents need to talk to agents.
You learn quickly.
by interacting in all of thestories out there.
I have learned so much about themarket, not just through my own
experiences, but by networkingand talking to the other
experienced agents that are outthere.
What happened on your offer,Nate?
What was it like?
Now, again, a lot of the agents,they're paralyzed.
(30:32):
They don't know how to talk onthe phone, but the experienced
ones, it's community.
They're your competitors, butthey're your colleagues, and
they are the best source ofinformation about what's going
on in the market.
The headlines, the stats, noneof that means anything.
What is happening in the realestate trenches, so whether
you're an agent, whether you'rea buyer, you're a seller, I
leave you with that.
Understand what's happening bytalking to people that are in
(30:53):
it.
Folks, thank you so much forwatching as always.
Feel free to leave me a commentif you're watching on YouTube,
and wherever you get yourpodcasts, please remember to
like, comment, or subscribe, andwe'll see you here next time.
on The Last Honest Realtor®.
So your house did not sell on offer date last
night as expected, but guesswhat?
It can sell tomorrow or the nextday or the day after.
Hello folks and welcome back tothe Last Honest Realtor podcast.
I'm your host David Fleming.
Thank you for joining me todayas we examine why selling your
home in 2025 feels so differentand oh so much harder.
(00:22):
Now the example I gave in theopening there is a common one.
A lot of houses are not sellingon the offer dates and it's
catching a lot of sellers bysurprise.
Now when I say house of course Imean freehold.
We can talk about the condomarket which we will but
specifically in that holy grailof housing the freehold and and
especially in that what I wouldcall central Toronto,
(00:44):
entry-level starter home pricedbetween 900 and 1.3 roughly,
there are a lot of houses nothitting their offer dates.
Now, I want to go right into anexample.
One of my listings that Irecently had to speak from
experience and underscore thepreparation that's involved,
which unfortunately a lot oflisting agents are not doing
with their clients, but also thethought process and the
(01:05):
psychology, what it's like to bea seller as you go through this
process.
So I have a listing.
Let's say it's in the$1.3million.
We do what we always do.
We spend time getting it readyfor sale.
There are some old carpets we'llrip up.
We'll put in some new flooring.
Easy peasy.
Kitchen counter, absolutely noproblem.
(01:25):
We take everything out of thehouse.
We put it all in storage.
We stage it.
We paint it.
We clean it.
We market it.
We do all the wonderful thingsthat we typically do.
And suffice it to say, the homeis ready to be sold.
Now we put it on the market.
And of course, guess what?
There's fewer showings than weexpected.
Now again, I talk aboutpreparation.
Very, very important for you asa real estate agent to sit down
(01:46):
with your clients, proverbially,of course.
I always list on a Monday orTuesday, and I always have a
conversation night before, and Ilay out the expectations.
Guys, the first day of thelisting, I'd like to have four
to five showings booked.
Now, not through the house, butbooked.
We just looked at bookedsemantics, but more importantly,
the second day of the listing.
That's when I would like to seesix to eight booked, because the
(02:08):
second day of the listing, well,that's when most people have
looked at it online, the agentshave emailed it, and they're
getting ready to go.
Now, they might book for theweekend, that's fine, but by the
end of those first two days, I'dlike to see roughly between
eight and 15 showings.
Now, the conversation goes on,and I say, at the end, for this
house that's listed at 15,$1,089,000, where we're looking
(02:29):
for 1.3 with an offer date, Iwould like to see about 30
showings when all is said anddone.
Now, let's say that this startsa little slowly.
We have two showings booked onthe first day.
And let's say that the secondday, which we expect to be our
big showing day, we have threeshowings booked.
Now, this is very typical inthis market.
Showings are down.
I've discussed this a lotthrough the podcast and through
(02:50):
Toronto Realty Blog over thelast couple of weeks.
But...
All is not lost.
As I am going through thisprocess with my sellers and
educating them on the fly,because it doesn't necessarily
meet with our expectation.
Hey guys, we're gonna have 30showings in total.
We're gonna have six to eightthe second day.
I'm talking to colleagues, whichagain is paramount for any agent
in this industry.
And an agent in my office whoshall remain nameless tells me
(03:13):
she had 18 showings and threeoffers.
Hey, three offers on 18, that'spretty good.
Then I talk to an agent, verywell known, on the east side,
who says that for her eightoffer melee, eight offers she
had on a listing, she only had24 showings.
Okay, so off to the races weare.
Now, the rest of this process,it does not play out as
(03:35):
expected.
Sellers are super nervous.
We've only had two people askfor a copy of the home
inspection so far, and by thetime we get to the weekend,
they're on edge.
Now, The weekend's great.
We have a ton of people throughthe open house.
And here's another thing youhave to remember.
There are a lot of buyers thatwill go through on the open
house without their agents.
I actually got a call from anagent who said that he was in
(03:58):
Europe and his clients camethrough the open house both
Saturday and Sunday.
He's on a flight coming home andwe have offers on a Monday.
This guy lands, I don't know howthe math works here, but lands
at like nine in the morning onMonday and then goes and books a
preview on the property fornoon.
We've got offers at six o'clock.
He didn't end up offering, butmore on that in a moment.
(04:19):
Now, the people are comingthrough the open house.
We have 15 groups on theSaturday.
We have 10 groups on the Sunday.
Everything's looking great.
Then we get to the offer date,six o'clock.
Now, what used to happen?
Here's the disconnect, andhere's where agents, whether
it's myself or anybody else, hasto talk to their sellers in
(04:40):
advance.
We're not getting 10 offers.
Once upon a time, This house,and like honestly guys, even
February of 2024, I had alisting on Westwood.
We were 9.99, we sold it for amillion four.
I think I had eight offers.
That was a year and three monthsago.
This is this year.
(05:00):
What it's not is 2022 or 2021.
We're not getting 15 offers inthis house.
We're not getting 10, we're notgetting eight, we're not getting
six.
Every agent that called me aboutthis property and they said,
what are you expecting fortonight?
And that's a very buyer agentthing to do.
I said zero to three offers.
That's about as honest as I canbe.
So if I say, oh, I'm expecting10 offers, because some of you
(05:21):
are like, David, why would yoube so honest?
If I say I'm expecting 10offers, what am I really flexing
with?
I'm going to drive them away.
And if I don't drive them away,then they're going to think I
have no idea what I'm talkingabout.
Honesty is important in thismarket, honest to a point.
But if I say zero to three, I'mbeing accurate because I might
have zero.
I don't know that I'm going toget three.
I'd love it, but that agent isprepared.
(05:43):
So four or five agents call me.
I say zero to three offers.
In the end, we get one.
We get one offer.
Now, the house is worth onethree, or I think it is.
Maybe it's not.
You tell me differently.
We're listed at a million, whatdid I say, 1,089?
We get an offer for 1,180,000.
So it's 100 grand over list, butit's 120,000 below for all
(06:06):
intents and purposes what thishouse is worth or what the agent
should believe it's worth.
But as that buyer agent, some ofyou are thinking, why would he
offer over list?
You're not getting it for1,089,000.
You know you're not.
It's listed low with an offerdate.
No seller has to accept thatbid.
I know there are some people outthere that are saying, every
seller should have to take everyoffer that comes in.
(06:28):
I don't believe in offer nightsand underlisting.
Okay, cool, conversation foranother day.
But the point is, he did hisjob, he came in Overlist,
nowhere near what we wanted, andhe said to me, David,
everything's negotiable.
So I call the clients, they'rein an absolute panic.
And I'm reminding them what wetalked about beforehand.
The one thing I did not tellyou, because I wanted to save it
for this moment, was that in theconversation about the number of
(06:50):
showings we expect, looking atthings like requests for the
home inspection as an indicationof interest, I tell my clients
the brutal, honest truth.
We have a 50-50 shot of sellingthis on the offer night.
I don't think people are tellingtheir clients that.
I think the major disconnect inthis market, and again, I'm
(07:14):
talking entry-level semis,right?
Or if you want the 1.6 semi andlease side, whatever it is.
In an area where you could havea$2.5 million detached, but it
happens to be so incrediblysought after, point is, the list
low offer date strategy, 50-50.
Agents aren't telling theirclients that, and it's setting
them up for disappointment.
(07:35):
It's setting the entire processup for failure.
So we get the one offer for amillion 180.
I say to my clients, guys,remember, we said there's a
50-50 shot.
And of course they're freakingout, right?
It's like, poof, amnesia.
Yes, we had this discussion,David, but here we are.
I cannot believe this.
The agent says to me,everything's negotiable.
So I started to talk to theclients about what to do.
(07:56):
They say, well, let's get themup in price.
Here's the thing.
You catch more flies with honeyand you've got to work in the
market that you're in.
And in this case, it's not 2022where you call 32 people or
blast out a mass email and say,we're sending you all back.
Here's where if you say to thatagent, can you come up in price?
He's going to say, yeah, but whywould we?
(08:19):
You give us a sign back.
Now, my clients said, why wouldwe sign it back?
It's an offer night.
Very true.
Very good point.
Very fair.
And this is where a lot oflisting agents are going wrong
because they're saying, yeah,totally, absolutely.
Let's tell them they have tocome up.
The buyers aren't going to doit.
They're not going to bid againstthemselves, nor should they.
(08:42):
Now, this agent said to me,listen, we've made you an offer.
The ball's in your court.
You can respond to us.
Exactly what he should havedone.
So we signed it back at 1.3 andthey came up to 1.210 and that
was it.
Now the sellers were not happy,I think that goes without
saying, and no matter how much Iprepared them for the fact that
their house might not sell onoffer date, all of a sudden now
(09:02):
it's here and it's real.
So as a seller you say thingslike, no one loves our house,
our showings were down, what didwe do wrong, I can't believe we
only got this much, are weheaded for financial ruin?
No, you're not, you've got aJuly closing date, you're fine.
You could sell your house inthree or four weeks.
Now the sellers of course aregonna go crazy and they're gonna
say, we can't do that.
(09:23):
Nor should they have to.
But the point is, the next day,the world continues to spin.
And this is a saying I've alwayshad.
I say to people, guys, if yourhouse doesn't sell on offer
date, tomorrow you wake up, theworld is still turning.
And yes, it is.
So I wrote a blog, I think itwas last year, about, no, I
think it was earlier this year,about selling on offer date,
(09:45):
strategy A, Selling in betweenoffer date and relist, the limbo
period as I call it, strategy B,and then selling after the
relist, strategy C.
You have to have all those threestrategies in advance.
And damn if I don't keepshammering on this point.
But listing agents, you have tohave this conversation with your
sellers.
So the next day, the phonerings.
(10:06):
As expected, it always does.
Five people call and ask, hey,did you sell last night?
Those are interested sellers.
agents with interested buyers.
Now, if you immediately relist,you don't get those phone calls
because they know that.
Now, I know there are a bunch ofagents that listen to the
podcast, so they will understandexactly where I'm coming from
here when I say the toughestthing for a listing agent after
(10:27):
a failed offer date is the nextday when agents call to inquire
because they have a is so hard,that is one of the hardest
things.
Imagine this, the phone rings.
Hey, David, I'm calling aboutyour listing at 123 Fake Street.
And you're like, yeah?
They're like, did you guys selllast night?
(10:47):
You're like, no, we didn't.
They're like, really?
And you think, oh my God,they've got a buyer.
And then they're like, becauseI'm actually prepping a listing
up the street from yours.
And you're like, oh.
That's a tough one.
I had about five of those calls.
So I have five agents that callme and ask if we sold.
I have five agents that call andask if we sold because they've
got a listing coming out.
And all the while, my clients,of course, are freaking out.
(11:08):
What are we going to do?
And I'm saying, guys, listen,we're in that in-between period.
We're in the limbo.
People are going to call andthey do.
Now I end up with two or threepretty interested parties, but
one in particular, the one Imentioned where The agent was in
Europe and flew back and saw it.
This is the one that I'm bankingon.
Now, I keep in touch with thembecause they go and make an
(11:30):
offer on another property, getabsolutely blown out.
There are properties that aregetting 16 offers and this one
happened to.
And by the time we get towardsthe end of the week, we need to
relist.
You can only stay at your$1,089,000 underlist so long.
So we come back out at$1,299,000.
I'm going to give you the endingof this story pretty quickly
(11:51):
without much drama.
We sold it to those people for$1,290,000.
So all's well that ends well.
Now, you could say, well, hangon.
You said$1,300,000.
It was$1,290,000.
Listen,$1,300,000 is$1,320,000is$1,280,000.
The point is, guys, we got itsold for what it was worth, but
it wasn't easy.
And this is what I wrote.
(12:11):
Why selling your home in 2025feels so different and so much
harder?
If you were in a differentjurisdiction somewhere else on
planet Earth and you complainedthat it took you 11 days to sell
your home, they would think thatyou're crazy.
But this is the point I'm makingtoday.
It feels so much harder.
(12:32):
Is it harder?
It's a different strategy.
We did what we always do.
We got the property ready.
We put it up.
We underlisted it.
We held an offer date.
We didn't sell an offer date.
That was Monday.
We sold it on Thursday.
We sold it three days after ouroffer date for what it was
worth.
But man, it was not easy to getthere.
(12:53):
So guys, that was a littlelonger lead-in than perhaps any
of us expected.
Here's where we're at in thismarket.
Sellers are running on oldassumptions.
The gap between sellerexpectation and buyer behavior
is widening by the week.
And this point cannot beunderstated.
Sellers' expectations, which arebased on agents leading them
(13:16):
astray or agents not reiningthem back in and the unrealistic
desire for a price from twoyears ago that is ever present
in our market.
And the buyers are looking atwhat's happening and they're
kind of veering off in the otherdirection.
Now homes are sitting longer andit's not because they're flawed,
it's because the buyers aren'tmoving quickly.
(13:39):
In the case that I mentionedwith the exceptionally long
lead-in story, I did talk to afew agents that when I said,
hey, are you coming in on offernight?
They said, I think my buyers aregonna take a wait and see.
I talked to a bunch of agentsthat said my buyers don't do
offer nights.
So call me a salesperson, butI've always said it's better to
overpay for a house you lovethan to underpay for a house you
(14:02):
like.
Now, if the strategy for a buyeris, I wanna look at every house
and the ones that don't hit ontheir offer dates and are
relisted and sit on the market,I wanna go for one of those.
Listen, you might get yourself agood deal, but is that the house
that you absolutely love?
Remember, yes, it's aninvestment, but you're also
living in there.
Now, relisting is back infashion and savvy buyers are
(14:23):
watching days on market likehawks.
Days on market add up.
Buyers have access, whether it'sto House Sigma or any of the
other apps or the savvy agentsthat are educating them on it.
You can take a listing, arelisting that's been on the
market for five days and lookback and see it was in the
market for 55 days before that.
They get it.
And Matthew, who's on my team,was telling me he's working with
(14:44):
a buyer where their strategy isthat there are two houses listed
on the same block.
Now, one of them has an offerdate and it doesn't hit.
And Matthew calls them and says,you know, what kind of price are
you looking for?
This agent's absolutely out tolunch, starts going like this.
For those of you listening, I'mdoing a yeah, yeah, yeah with my
fingers.
And Matthew says, listen,there's literally a house 10
blocks, sorry, 10 houses up.
(15:06):
And that agent has said hisclients have bought firm, they
need to sell.
That guy's rolling out the redcarpet.
What are you going to do for me?
The end of this story is thatthe agent did more yeah, yeah,
yeah, blah, blah.
Matthew literally moved on tothe other house.
That listing agent, who thinksit's 2022, cost his seller a
sale.
But the point is, this is a reallive story with young Matthew on
the team, who has clients thatare watching on Days on Market,
(15:27):
who has clients that are lookingat the opportunity for
competition in the same block,And they're running with it.
Now, many sellers are stillthinking in 2021 dollars or 2022
or even 2023.
Well, buyers are negotiatinglike it's 2018.
Okay, I might have fudged theyears there just to kind of
demonstrate, okay, buyers aren'tthinking it's 2018.
(15:47):
But what a lot of buyers aredoing, and I don't really want
to get into the condo marketbecause that's like a whole
other podcast.
But there are buyers in thecondo market that, for example,
I've got a listing at 639.9.
We got an offer last night.
for 590.
I talked to the agent on theweekend.
He said, my client has apre-approval of 600.
I said, we're not interested.
(16:08):
Now, I've done podcasts beforeabout how you always invite the
offer.
That was me already negotiating.
But the guy came in at 590.
Okay, off to the races, I guess.
Now, when he said my client is apre-approval for 600, his offer
was conditional on financing,status certificate, home
inspection for a condo, I knowwe'll get him up.
My goal there is to get 620 forthis place.
(16:28):
But point is, they had noproblem coming$50,000 below list
on this place when it's onlybeen on the market for 14 days.
Now, the frustration is real,but the market has moved on and
the sellers that don't recognizethat shift are already falling
behind.
So this market is not declining.
Don't think that when I'm sayingand they're falling behind.
And I had one seller who said, Idon't wanna chase the market
(16:52):
down.
The market's not going down.
The market's completely flat.
I might argue that month overmonth, two months in a row, the
market's up.
Okay, but it's also primespring.
So we're not chasing the marketdown, but what we are doing as
sellers is we're getting furtherbehind.
So once upon a time, if you hada stale listing 30 days in the
market, people assume there'ssomething wrong with it.
Yes, there are buyers that canbe targeting that, but as a
(17:15):
seller, your listing just fallsfurther and further out of
favor.
Now, what is driving this shift?
This isn't about one bigvariable.
It's a combination of subtlepressure points that are finally
adding up.
So the first thing I wanna lookat is interest rates.
Interest rates haven't droppedto matter.
The minor cuts are more symbolicthan practical.
And if I go back to last fall,and I can admit when I'm wrong,
(17:38):
last fall, specifically lastsummer, when we first started to
see the cuts, I said, okay,people are going to get ahead of
this because when super cuts areenacted, prices will shoot up.
The savvy buyer goes out andthey buy in June, July, August
of 2024 in advance of all thecuts.
Well, the fall market didn'ttake off like I expected it to
(17:59):
because what I realized is thatnot everybody thinks like me.
Go figure.
People want to wait until thecuts are there.
They don't want to buy ahead ofthe cuts, right?
Wayne Gretzky, what does he say?
Go to where the puck is going,right?
A quarterback will not throw tothe player.
He'll throw to where they'rerunning to.
That's a pretty good analogy,don't you think?
So that is what I thought wouldhappen.
(18:19):
Then, of course, we got in thespring of this year and I was
all geared up and then cameTrump and tariffs and election
and all this stuff, not makingexcuses.
But I think the point is a lotof folks are waiting...
to see the Bank of Canada hit2%.
Down from 5%, some quick math,yes, you've reduced the interest
rate by 60%.
I think that is what we'rewaiting for.
Now, buyers are selective andcautious.
Everyone has seen the headlinesand they're hedging.
(18:42):
And I think that it's very hardto buy into a market where the
media attention is constantlynegative.
I mean, there's a...
I get the Toronto Star emailthat has kind of like a summary
of all the real estate articlesin the week.
And their headline, among abunch of different headlines,
was about the condo marketcollapse.
How do you go and buy a condowhen you're seeing the word
collapse?
(19:02):
Now, the pre-construction markethas collapsed, which of course I
called for the last 15 years.
But point being, how do you goand buy into a market when
you're seeing headlines likethat?
Now, the holding costs areclimbing.
For sellers carrying vacant orstaged homes, time is expensive.
And another point...
that I wanna make here is thatbecause holding costs are
(19:22):
climbing and it's taking longerto sell, here's where some
selling agents are saying, Idon't wanna spend any money.
Now, I have 13 listings rightnow.
Every one of my listings isstaged, okay?
I spend money to make money.
In a down market, in an upmarket, in a balanced market, I
(19:42):
do not change what I do becauseI believe in the model.
But that's me.
There are a lot of agents outthere right now that are saying,
we used to list a property, holdoffer date, and sell it.
I don't wanna be on the hook forabsurd staging costs.
I understand that, but that'snot what we do, or at least
that's not what I do.
So yes, my expenses are way upbecause properties are taking
(20:06):
longer to sell, but agents inthe industry aren't following
along.
So now you've got a toughmarket, you've got a tough sell,
and then your offering lookslike crap.
It's vacant.
It's dirty.
It's tenanted.
Well, the tenanted thing youcan't do anything about, but
it's lived in.
And it's on the market againstnine other listings, five of
(20:30):
which are beautiful and staged.
Now is not the time for agentsto get cheap.
And what I'm seeing over andover again is that the sellers
that are carrying these or thesellers are obviously incurring
costs, but the listing agentsjust don't want it.
to spend the money.
Now, digital exposure isn'tworking like it used to.
A great listing today isn't justin the mix.
(20:51):
I think that people have to geta little bit more creative.
I was just talking to Lindsayoff camera and she said, we've
got one listing that's not doingwell.
She said, you've got to knowLindsay, we're getting an effing
ice cream truck.
That was her idea.
I said, you know what?
Yeah, we should.
Let's do that.
Now, we had one where we got outthe Bosley bike.
The Bosley bike is one of thoselike ice cream, how would I
(21:15):
describe it?
You know, it holds ice cream.
Sorry, I'm not feeling verycreative today.
It's not a truck, but we had oneof those at an open house.
A lot of people showed up.
Now, I don't know that any ofthem were going to buy the
house, but for that particularlisting, guess what?
Someone that lived across thestreet, whose door we knocked
on, told their friend, and thefriend came and bought it.
(21:36):
You gotta think outside the box.
When the market's absolutelyripping, sure, you can put your
thing on MLS and just wait.
Sit back, get a lawn chair.
But in a market like this, youhave to do things.
And Lindsey with the ice creamtruck, I'm literally gonna go
back there in about 10 minutesand she will have an entire
price list and she'll have fourdifferent vendors and I just
absolutely know how she doesthings.
So the result of all this, guys,is that homes that should sell
(21:59):
are being ignored.
Not because of what they are,but because of what the market
isn't anymore.
And I've always said that youhave to work in the market that
you're in.
Don't think it's something else,don't work in a past market,
don't try to work in a futuremarket.
You're trying to forecast whereit's going, you have absolutely
no idea.
And even if you knew withcertainty, you're still not in
that market.
So the sellers are acting likeit's years ago.
(22:20):
The buyers, they're certainly,certainly trying to take
advantage.
And I always do look inwardfirst.
I blame the action or inactionof a lot of the listing agents.
Now, the new seller's playbook.
There is still a market, but itrewards precision, not momentum.
Price needs to be accurate onday one.
(22:41):
Testing the ceiling just meansburning your best week.
Burning your best week.
Your best week is the firstweek.
So let's say, oh, I don't know.
Let's say Tara and I go in andwe meet a builder and the
builder says, well, I think myhouse is worth X.
Now builders always price 20%above market.
(23:02):
And we of course say, if youwant to price at four and a half
million, reduced to 4.3, reducedto 4.1, reduced to 3.9 and sell
for 3.7, nine months from now,we're not the agents for you.
Now, It's gonna be tough forthat builder to hire us because
that's what builders do.
(23:24):
But what I'm seeing is thatbuilder mentality is playing out
in the resale market wherepeople are saying, I wanna test
the ceiling.
Now, once upon a time, you don'tknow if your house that you
think is worth a million bucksCould you get$1,020,000,
$1,050,000?
What could you get?
You price it at$749,900 with anoffer date.
(23:44):
Oh my God, you got$1.1 million.
Thank God you didn't list at amillion with offers any time.
We're not in that market.
But sellers still just aren'twilling to let go of the ceiling
that just doesn't exist.
So now you've got that housethat's worth a million.
(24:05):
And you're not gonna list it lowwith an offer date.
I mean, in this case, youprobably would, but let's say
that it's in Durham region orsomething.
And so you price it 1,079,000.
But it's not worth it.
It's not worth it.
The comp just sold for 950.
And that's this ceiling thatsellers are trying to strive for
that is so incredibly far out ofreach.
And in turn, they are burningtheir best week.
(24:26):
They're not just burning theirbest week, guys.
They're burning their best monthbecause it takes a while to
reduce.
Now, presentation matters morethan ever.
If it isn't aspirational, it'sforgettable.
And I go back to the point aboutthe holding costs and how these
costs are climbing.
I don't want to cry poor, but mycosts are through the roof this
year.
My job is to sell real estate.
There will be good years and badyears.
(24:47):
There will be different years.
But at the end of the day, mycosts are up because it is
necessitated.
That is what we have to do tosell.
We have to make this thing lookas good as it did in 2023 or
2021 or 2016.
My model's always been the same.
But a lot of these listings arecompletely forgettable, and a
lot of them aren't even gettinglooked at.
(25:08):
Now, strategy needs to be local,not generic.
Timing, staging, Evenphotography should speak to the
micro market.
And I mentioned that we're doingdifferent things to try to think
outside of the box.
Tara and I for a listing didthis awesome drone video
property walkthrough situation.
I have absolutely no idea ifthat was a waste of money or
not, but damn if we weren'tgoing to try it.
(25:31):
You need to elevate your game.
And it's not just the listingagents, it's the sellers too.
So some sellers are saying,yeah, I don't know if I wanna
move out You wanna do this weekof showings and you wanna have
this offer date, but I mean, isit really gonna work?
Do we really need to do that?
Now is not the time to get outof that mentality.
Do whatever it takes.
(25:53):
Now seller psychology is part ofthe pitch.
Buyers want confidence, notdesperation.
And I go back to the mindset ofa seller that decides how this
is gonna go in advance and whenit doesn't go their way, You
know, they start to panic.
Sellers can make bad decisionsif their listing agent isn't
holding their hand through theentire process.
(26:13):
You try to prep them in advance.
And trust me when I saythroughout the process, no
matter how much preparationthere is, there are going to be
bumps along that road.
And there are going to bemoments where they might doubt
you, the agent, or your ability,or your plan, or your process.
But you have to continue to leadthem down the path.
And I used this example earlierof the strategy A listing agent.
(26:34):
with an offer date, doesn'twork.
Strategy B, the limbo period inbetween after the failed offer
date, drumming up interest,doesn't work.
Strategy C, listing, relisting,and you'll get it sold.
That is the new normal in ourmarket.
Agents who succeed this springwill be the ones who stop trying
to win the listing and starthelping clients get through the
noise.
And I can't tell you guys,honestly, I don't know how this
is gonna sound, I've had a lotof, I don't want to say I've
(26:59):
turned down a lot of business.
I've had a lot of sellers that Ihave not connected with because
we just weren't on the samepage.
It's not to say I'm not going tofight and scrape and claw for
that seller, but when we're sofar off base, when sellers say,
I need to get this, and I say, Iunderstand, but that's 20% above
fair market value.
I need this.
I need.
(27:19):
Need doesn't play in thismarket.
Now, what smart sellers aredoing right now.
Okay, we're going to look atthis from the Viewpoint of
sellers, buyers, and agents.
Sellers, look past last year'ssales and focus on today's
traction.
Price sharp, launch clean, andmove decisively.
Hesitation has a cost.
If you're a seller and you'relisting on June 1st, you had
(27:40):
better be paying attention toall of the listings that come
out mid-May onward and what'shappening on their offer nights.
Buyers, you're in a better spotthan you realize.
If something feels right, makeyour move, but make it wisely.
And I would continue to offer...
You've heard this from mebefore.
It's better to overpay for ahouse you love than underpay for
(28:01):
a house you like.
I understand the investmentportion of it.
I understand that you could geta great deal.
But at the end of the day,personally, every property I've
ever bought, I've looked backand said, man, if I had to do it
over, I would pay more just toguarantee it.
Because of course I live thereand I love there.
It's your home.
It's not just an asset.
Now agents, oh agents, lead withclarity.
(28:24):
Be blunt about what's changed.
Clients don't need optimism.
They need options.
Now, sure, they need optimism,but they need realism.
And I have lost listings overprice.
I had one seller, I did a fullpresentation.
I love stats.
I can't tell you how much thatis a part of what I do.
(28:47):
And I said, this is a 1-3, 1-3-5house.
Seller folded her arms acrossher chest and said, If I'm gonna
buy the condo I want to downsizein, I need one six.
That's a lot.
I didn't get that listing.
And it came out on the market.
It was priced too high.
(29:07):
It got zero offers on offernight.
It's been sitting there showingoffers reviewed on April 28th.
It still says that.
And we're in late May.
I don't know if that's panic.
I don't know if that'sdesperation.
I don't know if that'sparalysis.
But they haven't changed theprice.
They haven't increased it yet.
(29:27):
I feel for that seller.
I told her, I understand whatyou want to do, but it might not
be possible.
And I said, if you want to waittwo or three years, I am your
guy.
I will work with you.
Oh, there was so much work thatneeded to be done in the house,
none of which they did, ofcourse.
But I was like, I will bringcontractors in.
We will do this together.
I'm your guy, whether it's todayat market value or two to three
(29:49):
years from now at the price youwant.
And she said, yeah, but then thecondo I want to buy is going to
go up in value.
So I just need to get what Ineed to get.
It's not the market that we'rein.
I wish it was.
So folks, I'm going to end itthere, short and sweet.
I hope you learned a little.
I think I did as I was goingthrough this.
And, you know, I can be verboseand tell a lot of stories.
(30:10):
But it is the stories in thismarket that are driving home the
point.
And one more point to agents,because I know agents listen to
this.
Agents need to talk to agents.
You learn quickly.
by interacting in all of thestories out there.
I have learned so much about themarket, not just through my own
experiences, but by networkingand talking to the other
experienced agents that are outthere.
What happened on your offer,Nate?
What was it like?
Now, again, a lot of the agents,they're paralyzed.
(30:32):
They don't know how to talk onthe phone, but the experienced
ones, it's community.
They're your competitors, butthey're your colleagues, and
they are the best source ofinformation about what's going
on in the market.
The headlines, the stats, noneof that means anything.
What is happening in the realestate trenches, so whether
you're an agent, whether you'rea buyer, you're a seller, I
leave you with that.
Understand what's happening bytalking to people that are in
(30:53):
it.
Folks, thank you so much forwatching as always.
Feel free to leave me a commentif you're watching on YouTube,
and wherever you get yourpodcasts, please remember to
like, comment, or subscribe, andwe'll see you here next time.
on The Last Honest Realtor®.
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