How do I know what to offer on a home in Langley?

The asking price is not the value of a home. It is the seller's opinion, sometimes a strategy, and occasionally a mistake in either direction. What a home is worth to the market is set by what similar homes actually sold for, recently and nearby. Learning to read those sales is the single most useful skill a buyer can have, and it is less complicated than it looks.

What a comparable actually is

A comparable is a recent sale of a home that a buyer could reasonably have chosen instead of this one. Same type of home, similar size, similar age, similar location, sold recently enough that the market has not moved much since.

The word that does the work is "instead". If a buyer looking at a townhouse in Willoughby would also have looked at the one two complexes over, that sale is a comparable. A detached house on a large lot in Brookswood is not, even if it sold the same week. Comparables answer one question: what did people like you pay for homes like this?

Active listings tell you something too, but not the same thing. An active listing is competition, not evidence. It shows what sellers hope for. A sale shows what a buyer agreed to pay.

Which sales count and which do not

In Langley, the type of home changes everything. Willoughby has many townhouse complexes built in the same period, so there are often several clean comparables. Fort Langley or an acreage in the Township has far fewer, and each one is different. The fewer the comparables, the more judgement goes into the number.

Within a group of sales, I look at what makes one home different from another. An end unit versus an inside unit. A corner condo versus one facing the parking. A renovated kitchen versus the original. A backyard against a busy road versus one backing onto green space. Parking, storage, view, and in strata buildings, the condition of the building and what the depreciation report says is coming.

For a strata home, a sale in the same complex is usually the strongest evidence, adjusted for the differences between units. The last sale in the building is often the one buyers and appraisers both look at first.

Adjusting, not averaging

A common mistake is to take five sales and average them. That hides everything that matters. One of those homes may have been renovated, one may have sold after months on the market, and one may have been a different floor plan.

Instead, I line the sales up from most similar to least similar and ask, for each one, whether this home is better or worse, and by how much. That gives a range, not a single number. The top of the range is where a buyer would be paying for features, and the bottom is where they would be getting a discount for a flaw.

Reading the situation around the home

Comparables give you a value range. Where your offer lands inside that range depends on the situation. How long has the home been listed? Was it listed before at a different price? Is the seller already committed to another purchase? Are there other offers? Is the home vacant?

None of those change what the home is worth. They change what the seller may accept. Your agent finds out what they can, and the listing history on the MLS shows some of it.

How I settle on a number with a buyer

Before we write anything, I give a buyer the comparables, show them which ones I trust and why, and explain the range. Then I ask them for two numbers. The first is what they will offer. The second is the most they will pay, the number at which they would rather walk away and keep looking.

That second number is the important one, and it should be decided calmly, before an offer, not in the middle of a negotiation. If the price goes past it, we stop.

I also remind buyers that a lender will usually order an appraisal, and the appraiser uses the same kind of comparables. Paying well above what the sales support can leave you with a gap that your lender will not cover. That is a conversation to have with your lender before you offer.

The difficult part

Sometimes the comparables say the home is priced too high, and the buyer loves it anyway. My job is to say so plainly. You can still choose to pay for a home you want, but you should know you are doing it.

Thinking about buying or selling in the Fraser Valley? Message me and we will go through your options.