Selling a home in West Vancouver?

It depends far more on the asking price than on the month you list. Comparable homes in West Vancouver that are priced close to recent sold figures tend to move in a matter of weeks, while ones priced optimistically can sit for months and often sell below where they would have if they had opened lower. Rather than quote you an average that may have nothing to do with your street, an 88 West agent looks at what genuinely comparable homes near you sold for and how long each of them took, then shows you three options so you can see the trade-off yourself. Nobody can guarantee a timeline, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

A Comparative Market Analysis is an estimate of what your home would sell for today, based on what similar nearby homes actually sold for recently. Your BC Assessment is something else entirely: it is a mass-appraisal figure produced once a year for property tax purposes, valued as of July 1 of the previous year, and calculated without anyone setting foot inside your home. It can be well above or well below market value, and buyers do not price from it. If you are deciding what to list at, the CMA is the number that matters and the assessment is a historical tax figure.

The main costs are the real estate commission, which is negotiated and split between the listing and buyer's agents, legal or notary fees for conveyancing, and a discharge fee if you have a mortgage to pay out. Depending on your situation there may also be a mortgage prepayment penalty, which is worth checking with your lender early because it can be substantial. What most sellers underestimate is the cost of time: in a market with more competition than usual, a listing that sits often ends up accepting less than it would have with a more realistic opening price. Your agent should put all of these in writing before you list.

It depends on whether you can carry two properties and on how confident you are about your timeline. Selling first gives you a known number to work with and removes the risk of owning two homes, but it can leave you needing somewhere to live. Buying first gives you certainty about where you are going, at the cost of pressure to sell by a date, which usually means accepting less. This is exactly the sort of question the three scenarios are meant to answer: once you can see what a fast sale costs versus a patient one, the decision is a lot easier to make.

No. The analysis is free and there is no obligation to list with us or with anyone. Plenty of people ask for it because they are deciding whether selling makes sense at all this year, and that is a perfectly good reason to ask. If you do decide to go ahead, we would like to be on your shortlist — but the work is yours either way.