Seller's Guide
Who Buys in Montreal and Laval: What the Data Actually Shows
You are preparing your property for “the buyer”. That generic buyer does not exist. The household that …
Your property has been listed for eight weeks. The phone has gone quiet, and the only suggestion you keep hearing is to drop the price. Before you decide anything, name the problem. What your listing has done over the past month already tells you which of the three possible problems you have, and they do not get fixed the same way.
Your property is not selling: the symptom points to the cause
There are three families of blockage, and they leave different traces.
Few showings. If over four weeks you count fewer showings than weeks elapsed, the problem is not inside the property. Nobody has walked in yet. So it is a price or exposure problem: either you are not showing up in the right buyers’ searches, or you are showing up and losing the comparison against other listings at the same price.
Plenty of showings, no promise to purchase. Buyers come in, then leave. Here the listing is working and the property is not keeping up. The cause sits in the gap between what the photos promise and what the visit delivers: a room smaller than it looked, a smell, a damp basement, a noisy neighbourhood, obvious work the price does not reflect.
Promises to purchase that collapse. You accepted, then the transaction died. This is no longer a market problem at all. It is a financing, inspection or title problem, and it will repeat itself with the next buyer until it is dealt with.
The diagnostic table to fill in this week
Pull out the real numbers from the last four weeks. Not the impression, the numbers.
| Symptom over 4 weeks | Most likely cause | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 4 showings | Price or exposure | Asking price, photos, active comparables |
| 4 to 10 showings, 0 promise | Property or condition | Showing feedback, smells, visible work |
| Showings up after a price cut | Price was the brake | Well calibrated adjustment, keep going |
| Promise accepted then cancelled | Financing, inspection or title | Financing annex, inspection report, certificate of location |
| No requests from buyers’ brokers | Exposure or remuneration | Inter agency distribution, collaboration terms |
This table does not replace an analysis. It stops you from treating a condition problem with a price cut, the most expensive mistake sellers make.
Compare your listing to APCIQ numbers, not to an impression
“Nothing is happening” is not data. APCIQ (the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers) publishes every month, from the Centris system, the median price and the average days on market by property category and by area. That is what your listing has to be measured against.
For the Montreal metropolitan area, in August 2026, APCIQ compiled 2,853 residential sales, down 13 % year over year, and 20,128 active listings, up 18 %. More supply, fewer sales: the comparison got harder for every seller, not only for you.
The benchmarks for the same month, for the Montreal CMA:
| Category | Median price, August 2026 | Days on market |
|---|---|---|
| Single family | $650,000 | 42 |
| Condominium | $437,250 | 62 |
| Plex, 2 to 5 units | $856,000 | 52 |
In Laval, still in August 2026, the single family home showed a median price of $642,750 and an average of 40 days, the condominium $449,000 and 63 days, with 1,514 active listings, up 10 % year over year.
Two clarifications matter more than the figures themselves. First, the average days on market is calculated on properties that sold. The ones that never found a buyer are not in it. A seller’s real average wait is therefore longer than the published number. Second, a condominium in the CMA went from 50 to 62 days on average in one year. If your condo has been listed for 55 days, you are inside the current norm, not in a failure.
Before you decide anything, position your property with the value estimate, then check the result against real comparable sales, not against active listings that may not be selling either.
What the average days on market tells a buyer’s broker
The information distribution service between agencies and brokers is not the public version of your listing. The OACIQ (Quebec’s real estate regulator) describes it explicitly as a service brokers subscribe to, distinct from advertising aimed at the general public. So the broker working with a buyer sees a more complete record than the one you see.
Ask your broker to show you that record on screen, with the dates. No public OACIQ document lays out field by field what each service displays, so do not rely on hearsay: have it shown to you.
The rest is judgment, and it should be stated as such. A buyer who sees a property listed for 90 days is no longer asking whether it suits them. They are asking why nobody wanted it, and they build their offer around that question.
Withdrawing and relisting: what it actually changes
The idea comes back every autumn: pull the listing, wait, come back looking brand new. That gets you a new listing number. It does not give the brokers in your area a new memory, and they will recognize the address and the photos.
There is also a contractual consequence many sellers discover too late. Article 2125 of the Code civil du Québec lets a client terminate a service contract at any time, and clause 2.1 of the mandatory brokerage contract provides for it. But article 2129 obliges the client to pay the expenses incurred and the value of the work already done. And the OACIQ points out that the broker or the agency may be entitled to remuneration if the property is sold within 180 days following the expiry of the exclusive contract to a person who took an interest in it while the contract was in force.
In other words: withdrawing in order to come back with someone else is not free, and it is not a pricing strategy. If the price is the problem, change the price.
My house is not selling in Quebec: when price is the answer, and by how much
Price is the answer when traffic is low and the sold comparables sit below your asking price. It is not the answer when showings are plentiful, because the market is then telling you that it comes to look, not that it finds you expensive.
On the size of the adjustment, let us be honest: no official source sets a minimum percentage. What is verifiable is the mechanics. Buyers and their brokers search in price brackets. A cut that leaves you in the same bracket and in front of the same competitors gets you seen by nobody new. A cut that takes you across a threshold puts you in front of a pool of buyers who were not seeing you at all.
So the right question is not “how many percent”, it is “what price makes me appear in a search where I do not appear today, and do I win the comparison at that price”. Three small successive cuts cost more than one well calibrated adjustment, because each one lengthens the history without changing the audience.
The move has a mandatory form. To change the asking price after signing, the OACIQ provides that the broker fills out a formulaire Modifications (the amendment form), which you both have to sign. The price entered at clause 4.1 of the brokerage contract is, moreover, the only price that may be advertised for your property.
What you can require from your broker
The broker has an obligation to verify and to inform, and must be able to demonstrate the accuracy of what they put forward with relevant documents. So you can ask, in writing, and obtain:
- The updated comparables analysis. The OACIQ describes the parity method as the one that generally suits residential property: you compare with similar properties actually sold, accounting for the time elapsed between the comparable sale and today.
- The number of showings, week by week, since the listing went live. Not an impression, a list.
- The buyers’ brokers comments after showings. That is the only direct source on blockage number two.
- The record as brokers see it, on screen, with the dates.
- The promotion plan provided for in the contract, and what was actually done. The OACIQ invites the seller to discuss these means before signing: advertising, sign, open houses, inter agency distribution.
If those five items do not exist, the problem is neither the market nor the property. It is in the file.
Frequently asked questions
My property has been listed for 70 days, is that abnormal? Not necessarily. In August 2026, the average days on market in the Montreal CMA was 42 days for the single family home, 52 for the plex and 62 for the condominium. Those are averages calculated on properties that sold, and they vary by area. Compare your category and your area, not the provincial average.
Can I fire my broker because it is not selling? You can terminate at any time under clause 2.1 of the mandatory brokerage contract and article 2125 of the Code civil du Québec. You could however have to pay the expenses incurred and the value of the work done, and remuneration may remain due if the property sells within 180 days following the expiry to a person who took an interest during the contract. Discuss the amounts before you send the notice.
A second promise to purchase collapsed. What should I do before the third? Deal with the cause before going back to market. If it is financing, the accepted price may exceed what a lender recognizes. If it is the inspection, get quotes and documents yourself. If it is the title or the certificate of location, settle it with the notary beforehand, not during.
Cutting $10,000 off $600,000, does that accomplish anything? No official source allows anyone to quantify the effect of a given cut. What can be said: if the new price does not make you appear in searches where you were absent, you handed $10,000 to the same audience.
To go further, read how long it really takes to sell a house in Montreal, how to prepare your home for sale and how to read market data rather than predictions.
Your listing is stalling and you want a second look at the numbers before touching the price? Write to me. I walk you through the comparables analysis and your showing history, and you decide afterwards.
Georges Matar
Residential Real Estate Broker · RE/MAX DU CARTIER INC.
Contact Georges
