Selling a house in Ontario: should I accept an offer that's lower than the price I had in mind?
Why the number in your head isn't the benchmark
When an offer comes in, a lot of sellers' first reaction is that it's too low. Too low compared to what? Usually compared to their own number: what they paid, what a neighbour mentioned, what they listed at.
Yifei has been a realtor in the Greater Toronto Area and Niagara for 11 years, and one year he closed 127 deals. His advice is to sort out one thing first: is this the price the market is giving you, or the price you have in mind? Your number is something you came up with. The buyer's number is real money. A lot of people treat the list price as the sale price, and that is a mistake.
He also has a view on regret. Sellers who sold a bit cheap get over it in a few days. The ones who lose sleep are the ones who didn't sell. That holds in Toronto and anywhere else in Ontario.
Which situation are you in
- The offer is close to recent sales of similar homes nearby: the market is telling you what the house is worth. If it feels low, it's probably because you're measuring it against your own number. Seriously consider signing.
- The offer is clearly below recent sales of similar homes: counter. You have the numbers, so you're negotiating from solid ground.
- Prices are heading down: what a buyer offers today may not be on the table next month. Waiting has a cost.
- Listed for months with no offers at all: don't jump straight to a price cut. Figure out why it isn't selling first. Cutting the price isn't the only fix.
Yifei is clear that he isn't telling anyone to sell cheap. An offer that shouldn't be signed can still be turned down.
What to do
- Pull the homes similar to yours that sold nearby in the last month or two. Look at sold prices, not list prices.
- Put the offer next to them. That tells you whether it's actually low.
- Think through the cost of saying no: every extra month on the market, the carrying costs keep coming, and plans like a move or a new job get pushed back too.
- If you're not sure, have your agent lay out the nearby sales for you before you decide.
What Yifei has seen
In the spring of 2022, a detached house in a small Niagara town got an offer of $1.35 million. The seller wanted $1.5 million, felt the offer was too low and didn't take it.
That price never came back. Yifei says you could already see the market heading down at the time. The buyer's $1.35 million was the answer; the $1.5 million was the seller's own idea, not something a buyer offered.
It cost more than money. The family had planned to move to another province, where a well-paid job was waiting. With the house unsold, they couldn't go, and in the end the job was given up. The seller still tells Yifei they regret it.
If he could do it over, Yifei says: that one offer, $1.35 million, sign it. That's his read of this seller's situation at the time, not a rule that every offer should be signed.
Ask about your own situation
How long your home has been listed, how many showings you've had, and how the offer compares with nearby sales: those decide whether you should sign, counter or wait. To ask about your own situation, reach out to Yifei (RE/MAX, efay.ai).