Should I price high and leave room to negotiate?

In a market where buyers have many homes to compare, this strategy often works against you. Buyers tend to search within price bands, so a home priced above its evidence can miss its most likely buyers entirely, and a listing that sits tends to attract lower offers later, not higher ones. There are exceptions, and every home is different, but in my experience the room you think you are leaving for negotiation usually becomes the discount you accept after months of waiting.

How long should I expect my home to take to sell?

It varies widely by area, property type, condition, and price, so no one can promise you a number honestly. What I can tell you is that a listing typically receives its strongest attention in its first weeks on the market, which is why the opening price matters so much. If interest is quiet after that early window, the price and the presentation both deserve an honest second look.

What does it cost to find out what my home would sell for?

Nothing, and you do not have to list your home to ask. I prepare a written comparison against recent sold prices near you, walk through the home with you honestly, and give you a realistic range with the evidence behind it. If the answer is that this is not the right time for you to sell, I will tell you that too.

For sellers · Advisory

Selling When Buyers Have Choice: Why the Right Asking Price Is Your Best Protection

Buyers in the GTA still hold real negotiating power. What a buyer's market means mechanically, why overpricing costs sellers more than it protects, and how disciplined pricing shields you from carrying costs and lowball offers.

5 min read

Jasmina Zivkovic

REALTOR®, RE/MAX Your Community Realty Inc.

If you are getting ready to sell your home in the GTA, you have probably asked the question every seller asks me first: should we price high and leave ourselves room to negotiate? In the market we have today, my honest answer is usually no, and I want to walk you through why, the same way I would at your kitchen table.

I have priced and sold homes through two full market cycles, including years when a well-prepared Richmond Hill listing could sell in days. We are not in those years, and I would rather tell you plainly what this market asks of sellers than let nostalgia set your price.

What does a buyer’s market actually mean?

It comes down to a simple ratio: how many homes are for sale versus how many buyers are ready to buy this month.

Two numbers describe that ratio. Months of inventory asks how long the current supply of listings would take to sell at the current pace of sales: the higher it climbs, the more choice each buyer has. Days on market measures how long the average listing waits for its buyer: the longer it stretches, the less pressure a buyer feels to act today.

When supply is high and waiting is cheap, the negotiating leverage sits with the buyer. They can compare your home against five others, sleep on it, and come back with conditions. Nobody did anything wrong; there is simply more to choose from than there are people choosing.

Where do we stand now? As of May 2026, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reported 6,583 home sales, up 6.3 per cent from a year earlier, against 17,698 new listings, down 18.9 per cent. The average selling price was $1,069,700, down 4.6 per cent from May 2025. In the words of TRREB’s chief information officer, buyers “continued to have substantial negotiating power through the spring.”

Both halves of that matter. Sales are rising and new listings are falling, so the market is working toward balance. But prices are still below last year, and buyers still hold real negotiating power in most segments. I stopped making market predictions long ago; I watched too many confident forecasts age badly, including some of my own from the 2008 era. We price against the market in front of us, not the one anybody hopes is coming.

Why does overpricing cost more than it protects?

Most sellers who price high are not being greedy. They are being careful, or so it feels: aim high, you can always come down. I understand the instinct, but the protection runs the other way.

First, think about how buyers actually search. Their agents and their apps filter by price, so a home worth $950,000 listed at $1,050,000 can be invisible to the very people most likely to love it. The buyers who do see it are shopping against genuinely better homes at that price, and your listing quietly helps sell theirs.

Second, in my experience attention is front-loaded: a new listing gets its largest audience in its first days and weeks. Miss that window with the wrong price and you never get it back at full strength; you get it back one price reduction at a time.

Third, the market keeps score in public. Every week on the market and every price cut is visible to buyers, and they read it the way you would: what is wrong with this one, and how much further will they come down? A reduction meant to restart interest often becomes an anchor for offers below the new price. The high asking price did not protect you; it handed the negotiation to the other side.

And while all of that plays out, you are carrying the home: mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, utilities, and the harder-to-count cost of a life on hold. Months of carrying costs plus a weakened negotiating position can easily outweigh the gap between the hopeful price and the honest one. This is why I treat pricing as protection: the right price is the shield, and the wrong price costs you a little more every month the home sits.

How do I actually arrive at a price?

My method has three parts, and none of them is hidden from you.

Comparable sales come first. Not asking prices, which are wishes, and not last year’s results, which are history: sold prices for genuinely similar homes near you in the last sixty to ninety days. That is the evidence a buyer’s agent will bring to the table, so we should see it before they do.

An honest condition assessment comes second. I walk through your home the way a careful buyer and their inspector will, and I tell you what I see, including the parts that are hard to hear. The price has to reflect the home you are selling, not the home it would be after the renovation you decided not to do. Sometimes a small, inexpensive fix changes the conversation; sometimes the honest answer is to price for the work and move on.

Your timeline comes third, and it is the part most pricing conversations skip. A family that must close before the school year needs a different strategy than an owner with no deadline at all. The price has to fit your actual plan, because a price that ignores your timeline protects nobody.

How should you handle offers in a slower market?

With patience, preparation, and respect for the buyers who show up.

Preparation means having your paperwork ready before the sign goes up: the survey if you have one, permits for any work you have done, utility costs, anything a careful buyer will ask about. I keep the full pre-listing prep list, and where renovation money actually pays off, in getting your home ready for serious buyers. In a market where buyers can afford to be thorough, the prepared seller keeps the negotiation calm and short.

Patience means accepting that showings may be quieter than you remember from a few years ago, without panicking into a reactive price cut in week two. If we priced on evidence, we hold with confidence and review on a schedule we agreed in advance.

And respect means taking every real offer seriously, including the ones that open lower than you hoped. In a slower market, the first solid offer often comes from the most motivated buyer your listing will meet, someone who chose your home against plenty of alternatives. It deserves a considered response, not a cold shoulder. Price is also only one term: closing date, conditions, and inclusions are all places where a negotiation can be won quietly.

The buyer across the table is not your adversary. Neither is their agent. The only adversary in this market is its complexity, and preparation is how we beat it together.

I built my early reputation protecting buyers from homes that would have hurt them. Pricing discipline is the same care pointed in your direction: it protects you, the seller, from the months of carrying costs, the public price cuts, and the low anchored offers that follow a hopeful number. If you want an honest read on what your home would sell for in this market, ask me. No listing required, no cost, no obligation. We will look at the sold evidence together, and you will know where you stand before you decide anything.

Frequently asked questions

Is the GTA a buyer's market right now?: As of May 2026, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reported 6,583 sales (up 6.3 per cent from May 2025) and 17,698 new listings (down 18.9 per cent), with the average selling price at $1,069,700, down 4.6 per cent year-over-year. TRREB's chief information officer noted that buyers continued to have substantial negotiating power through the spring. So the market is showing signs of balancing, but in most segments buyers can still compare, wait, and negotiate. Conditions vary a great deal by neighbourhood and property type, so check what is actually selling near you before you draw conclusions.
Should I price high and leave room to negotiate?: In a market where buyers have many homes to compare, this strategy often works against you. Buyers tend to search within price bands, so a home priced above its evidence can miss its most likely buyers entirely, and a listing that sits tends to attract lower offers later, not higher ones. There are exceptions, and every home is different, but in my experience the room you think you are leaving for negotiation usually becomes the discount you accept after months of waiting.
How long should I expect my home to take to sell?: It varies widely by area, property type, condition, and price, so no one can promise you a number honestly. What I can tell you is that a listing typically receives its strongest attention in its first weeks on the market, which is why the opening price matters so much. If interest is quiet after that early window, the price and the presentation both deserve an honest second look.
What does it cost to find out what my home would sell for?: Nothing, and you do not have to list your home to ask. I prepare a written comparison against recent sold prices near you, walk through the home with you honestly, and give you a realistic range with the evidence behind it. If the answer is that this is not the right time for you to sell, I will tell you that too.