As the average price of a house in Toronto soars, long-time homeowners are in an excellent financial position if they ever decide to sell. Property values fluctuate from time to time. However, at prices approaching nearly $2 million for a detached home and well over $700,000 for a condo, you have likely gained significant equity, even if you just bought a few short years ago.

One of the first questions when selling is how much it will cost to prepare, list, and promote your home in today’s market. Most people know there are closing costs, which can add up to 3-5% of your total selling price. There are other expenses to consider, as well. Knowing what to expect will help you prepare and price your house accordingly. In this post, we’ll explore both the intangible and the tangible costs of selling a home in Toronto.

It Isn’t All About Money 

The longer you live in your home, the easier it is to let the little things slide. A chip in the wall there, a stain in the carpet here—what’s a little minor imperfection among friends? To you, your home has character and is filled with cherished memories. You’re only too happy to overlook these minor details if you even see them at all.

A buyer, however, pays meticulous attention to everything. If you want to gain the maximum value for your home, it’s going to take you time, effort, and what could be a bittersweet journey down memory lane to get ready for the market.

By the time you’re finished, your home might not even feel like yours anymore. Believe it or not, that’s actually a good thing. You don’t want the house to look or feel like yours – if you do it right, it will now feel like it’s made just for the buyer. This temporary discomfort is a small price to pay when you consider how much you stand to earn by making your listing appeal to buyers.

Should you consider investing in Toronto real estate? If so, the posts below can put you on a successful path:

The Emotional Toll of Selling a Home

At the very least, preparing your home for sale means intense cleaning and decluttering. You’ll want to scrub every nook and cranny, sometimes even places you haven’t reached in months. Windows must be washed, floors should be scrubbed, carpets should be professionally cleaned or shampooed, walls wiped down, and all surfaces cleared off.

One thing that many homeowners often overlook is closet space. During your daily cleaning sessions, you get away with stuffing things away so that they’re out of sight.

That doesn’t cut it when preparing your house for a scrutinizing buyer’s eyes. With storage space at a premium, the closets are one of the first things they look at. If each storage space is stuffed to the brim and overflowing, it looks smaller than it is. When tidy and well organized, closets can actually appear bigger. This alone is a major selling point in Toronto’s market today.

Cleaning and decluttering sound like simple tasks, but feel very different once you dive in and get to work. When faced with discarding or donating many of your most cherished items, it suddenly seems that every little thing in your house has a precious memory attached to it.

Saying “goodbye” to your belongings takes a toll, and this is one of the most expensive intangible costs there is. However, clearing out all of the items that you no longer need or use can give you a sense of freedom, even when you don’t plan to sell your house.

Time and Effort Equals Greater Profits

When it comes to making minor repairs to bring your house up to a standard for today’s market, you have two choices.

  1. You can perform the renovations yourself if you have the skills and the time.
  2. You can hire a professional to take care of it for you.

Either way, there is a cost involved. If you plan to fix up the home yourself, you have the cost of materials, and of course, your time is also valuable. You can save money while still maximizing the value of your transaction as long as you’re sure the end result is of high quality.

Real Estate Commissions

Real estate commissions are one of the most contentious topics to bring up with homeowners who are considering selling. Skipping a traditional real estate agent can be tempting in this day and age of discount brokerages and the ability to list your home FSBO (for sale by owner). However, with the right agent, these commissions really aren’t costs at all. How does this math add up?

Even though you might pay anywhere from 3 to 6% commissions on the total value of your sale, you want to look at the total dollar value that a professional can add to the transaction.

Real estate agent-assisted sales almost always earn more.

Even if you just break even, this investment more than pays for itself by easing the stress and the work involved in selling your home. More often than not, you will end up with more in your bank account upon closing day. Here’s a quick breakdown of what this might look like. 

  • Imagine you could sell your home for $1 million by yourself.
  • A good real estate agent might add 10 to 20% to that value. Let’s this means selling your house for $1.1 million. That’s $100,000 more than you would have had.
  • A 5% commission would work out to $55,000. This is an increase of $45,000 in your account.

When selling your house without an agent or with a limited-service brokerage, you may never know how much potential you have lost. What you could have earned – but didn’t – is one of the highest intangible costs in real estate.

This is why we always recommend working with a full-service real estate team that is up-to-date and highly experienced in every type of market. Making the most of your transaction now puts you in a stronger position to purchase your next home, wherever it may be.

What else should you know before selling your Toronto home? The resources below will help ensure you’re well-prepared:

Marketing Costs of Selling Your Home

While you can reach a limited audience by posting on social media for free, you will want to extend your exposure to maximize the value of your sale. If you attract only one or two serious buyers to your listing, the buyer has most of the negotiating power.

But if you have ten or more interested buyers, then you are in a position of strength. More interested buyers typically translate into more offers, and a better chance of selling for over your asking price. Naturally, there is a cost to marketing your property.

  • Professional videos and photography will become the foundation of all of your marketing materials. both online and offline.
  • Targeted online advertising has a cost, but you can reach more people searching for a property like yours, often who have already been pre-approved for a mortgage, and are ready to take action.
  • Though online marketing is more prevalent, you can still reach a wider audience by implementing offline strategies. These include just-listed flyers and feature sheets.

The more exposure your home gets, the more likely you are to sell quickly and at a price that you are more than happy with. With an effective strategy and execution, the cost of selling your home can be minimal compared to the payoff.

Are you ready to start selling? Our Midtown Toronto real estate team will be happy to help you maximize your results and minimize your costs. Reach out to david@batorigroup.com, bobby@batorigroup.com or call (416) 485-7575 for more information.