What’s the difference between a fact and an opinion?

Wait.  Don’t answer that.  It’s 2026, after all, and nothing is easy…

I’m about to tell a story that I honestly can’t make sense of.  I’ve reflected on this for weeks, and I still don’t understand what happened, why it happened, and how in the world it could have happened!

Pricing real estate in 2026 is no easy task.  Putting the correct listing strategy into place is not necessarily an easy decision.

But there are cases where you know what a property is worth, or very close to it, and in these cases, you’ll absolutely know what it’s not worth.

I had a listing for a west-end condo in an older building, with a mature demographic, where prices are very low.  By low, I suppose you could say “attractive,” but suffice it to say, these larger units, in this older building, primarily lived in by an older demographic, sell for far less than the market average.

The sales over the last few years have been hit-or-miss, like most of the condo market.

So when my clients decided to list their condo for sale in January, we underwent a minor facelift first.

As I have written about many times over the last couple of years, going beyond traditional staging is essential in this market.

Inside this dated unit, we replaced the kitchen counters, kitchen backsplash, and kitchen appliances, while painting the cabinets.  In the bathrooms, we replaced the vanities and tile.  We painted the whole condo.  We updated all the light fixtures.  We removed the mirrored doors in the hallway and installed three sets of new, white double doors.

We did a lot to this condo, which we felt was necessary to sell it in this market.

My clients, who both work in finance, pored over the comparable sales in the building, the movement of various market metrics, and the value of the upgrades that we added.

We settled on a list price of $769,900, which we felt added in a “buffer” in case a buyer wanted to negotiate; we really felt that $750,000 for the condo would be a great outcome.

On the very first day of the listing, we had a showing booked!

Fantastic!

I didn’t recognize the name of the agent, but it’s a big city, so you can’t know everybody!

Later that afternoon, I received a phone call, which I will try to replicate here verbatim.

First of all, the area code was 519.  Just tuck that under your hat for later.

The agent introduced herself and said, “Can I ask you about your listing at (Address)?”

I was excited!

My clients and I weren’t exactly sure how this listing would go, so getting a call about it on the very first day was a great sign.

I said, “Sure, what can I tell you?”

The agent, whom we’ll call “Nancy” today, said that she was a little bit confused by the price.

Was this a good thing or a bad thing?

I asked, “Confused, how, exactly?”

She said, “The price is way, way off.”

I asked her, “Do you mean the price is too low, or do you mean the price is too high?”

Her next answer said it all:

“Too low.  Like, way too low.  Like……….two hundred thousand dollars too low.”

Something didn’t make sense.  Two hundred thousand dollars was 26%.  Nobody is that far off, so what in the world was she getting at?

I asked her, “Are we talking about the same condo?  Unit number (address), the one that was just listed today for $769,900?”

She said, “Yes.  That’s the unit.”

I said, “And you’re telling me that it’s, apparently, priced $200,000 too low?”

Amazingly, she replied, “At least that much.  I mean, probably more.”

Try to picture me sitting in my office, scratching my head like a cartoon character from your favourite show in 1985.

Before I could offer any response whatsoever, she said, “Do you mind if I ask where you got your pricing from?”

Was this a trick question?  Was I being punked?

I said, as though I was answering with a question, “From……..the real estate market?”

I really didn’t know what the heck she was asking.

She said, “No, I mean, like where.  Like, how did you come up with that value?”

I said, “From the comparable sales in the building.”

This, apparently, was her “gotcha” moment.  The tone in her voice changed as she said, “EXACTLY!  The comparable sales!  That’s what I’m talking about!”

She sounded like she had a point to make, so I simply offered, “I’m listening.”

She told me, “Two-bedroom units in this building sell for a million dollars.  There are two sales that are just shy of a million, and one more over a million that got a bidding war.”

This made absolutely zero sense to me.

I knew what she was talking about, but it’s sort of like looking at the number “6” on a chalkboard, while the person standing next to you says, “That’s a seven.”

You’re both looking at the same thing, but you’re seeing that thing differently.

She said, “Look, full disclosure, I’m prepping a listing for sale, and we’re valuing our unit at just shy of a million dollars.  But we think your listing is just way too low.”

Ah.

Now it made sense!

She had a proverbial “horse in the race,” except her horse was on the wrong track, which said nothing of the broken kneecap the animal had as well, but I digress…

Her next question, rhetorical in nature, was “Did you even look at those sales?”

I was so confused that I started to talk very slowly, which isn’t like me.  I said, “I know those sales.  We looked at those sales.  My clients and I analyzed those sales.”

To which, she responded, “Right, and for some reason you’ve listed two-hundred thousand dollars lower?”

I felt like I was about to tell a flat-earther that the planet on which we live is actually spherical in nature.

“Nancy,” I said very slowly, “The condos that sold for $952,000 and $930,000 were both over 1,500 square feet.”

She said, “Uh-huh.”

I said, “The condo that sold for $1,003,500 was listed for $999,900, so I don’t know that I’d call that a ‘bidding war.’  Maybe they bought some furniture from the sellers?”

She simply said, “Right…”

Then I added, “That condo, for what it’s worth, was 1,535 square feet.”

She seemed to be following, as she offered another, “Uh-huh.”

So then I delivered the equivalent of the Earth’s satellite image, showing its round form, when I said, “My listing is 1,115 square feet.”

Case closed, right?

She was citing three sales that were over 1,500 square feet, which sold in 2025, when our listing was 1,100 square feet.

Amazingly, she replied, “So what?”

So WHAT?

So everything!

I asked her, “Do you not see the difference between a 1,100 square foot condo and a 1,500 square foot condo?”

Here was the kicker; she said, “Not a two-hundred thousand dollar difference.  It makes no sense.  How did you come up with this?”

I answered, “Math.”

She said, “What?”

I said, “Basic, basic math.”

Nancy said, “I don’t understand.”

I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but I simply asked her, “What’s six times four?”

She asked, “Is this a serious question?”

I told her, “Just humour me.  What’s six times four?”

She said, “Twenty-four.”

I said, “Exactly.  Now, what’s six-hundred times four-hundred?”

Nancy said, “How the hell would I know?”

(facepalm)

“It’s two-hundred forty thousand,” I told her.  “These condos sell for around $600 per square foot.  Our unit is four-hundred square feet smaller than the three previous sales in the building.  Do you follow?  That’s a $240,000 difference, and hence we’re actually over priced at $769,900.

Donezo!

Case closed, right?

Nope!

She shot back, “That’s an interesting perspective.”

I said, “No, Nancy, it’s math.  It’s not a perspective, it’s not my opinion, it’s math.”

Nancy said, “Well, it’s one way of doing math.”

My heart was in my throat, honestly.

She then asked, “Did you only consider those three past sales?”

This was a very interesting question since she was the one who told me about these three sales to begin with.

I told Nancy, “No, actually, I looked back almost two years at the most comparable sale to ours.”

Nancy said, “I saw that one!”

I told her, “Yes!  The identical model to ours, literally next door to our unit, sold for $860,000 in the summer of 2024.  And it was fully renovated.”

This was open-and-shut now, right?

I told her, “Nancy, the average 416 condo price in June of 2024, when the unit next door sold, was $748,330.  The most recent average in December of 2025 was $663,227.  That means, at least on paper, the average 416 condo is down 13.9%.”

There was silence on the other end.

I continued, “So, theoretically, on paper, that $860,000 price would be $740,460 today.”

More silence.

“So Nancy,” I concluded, “Considering that unit was more renovated than ours, I would offer, again, that we’re over-priced at $769,900, and we sure as hell are not under priced by $200,000 or more, as you say.”

And what did Nancy say, you ask?

“Nah, that doesn’t add up.”

Shoot me in the head with a nice, shiny bullet, won’t you?

“Nancy, it’s math.  It adds up perfectly,” I told her.

She said, “I’m not convinced.”

I asked her, “Nancy, convinced of what?  What do you need to be convinced of?  Why in the world would I be arguing that the value of my listing is lower?  Why would I want to sell it for less?  You have access to the same comparable sales that I do.  We’ve gone through the price per square foot exercise for recent sales, and we’ve looked at the most comparable sale, time-adjusted.  Both exercises point to a value in the mid-$700,000 range.  What am I missing here, Nancy?”

Nancy said, “Your price is too low.  It’s just way, way too low.”

Then, as though she was placating a six-year-old child, Nancy said, “I admire your enthusiasm, though, and I think you have a really interesting perspective, and some interesting ideas.  So, well, I hope it works out for you.  You’ll have no trouble selling that condo.”

And that was the end of the call.

The thing is, we did have trouble selling the condo.

And Nancy?

She listed her condo one week later for $999,900, and it’s been sitting on the market ever since.

I thought that I had experienced everything there is to experience in this industry, but this was a new one for me.

I know there’s a fine line between facts and opinions in today’s day and age, and I recognize that in any market of buyers and sellers, opinions on fair market value can vary.  But this experience was bizarre.

Honestly, I think that maybe Nancy was out of her depth because she wasn’t in St. Catharines or Niagara, or wherever she’s from, or perhaps she had a seller who was telling her what the condo was worth.

Maybe it was both.

Maybe Nancy decided that “luck” and “hope” would sell her condo.

But when I replay that conversation in my head, I conclude that she really, truly did believe what she was saying.  She really, truly did believe that a 1,100 square foot condo was the same as a 1,500 square foot condo, and thus it was worth the same too.

I suppose she also figured that, despite empirical evidence that condo prices have declined over the past eighteen months, in this building, for her unit, prices had increased.

Crazy.  Just crazy!

Makes me want to paddle off the side of this flat earth, I tell ya…