Selling in August 2026: Listing Before the Fall Rush

This article is for someone listing this week, not for someone watching the market. The context is known: active listings are up 17% year over year in the Montreal metropolitan area, and that stock is made mostly of homes that are not selling, since new listings are up only 4%. We explained that mechanism in our analysis of Montreal inventory, stock versus flow. Here we move to what to do about it.

The market you are facing, in one line

All three Montreal metropolitan segments fall in volume year over year, and all three see their median price rise over twelve months: $650,000 for single-family homes, $431,500 for condominiums, $865,000 for plexes. In other words, it is not the level of prices that has weakened, it is the number of active buyers and the time they take to compare. A well-prepared seller is still in a market that pays; a poorly positioned one waits.

What to compare against, and what to avoid

The right reference is sales that actually closed, for the same property type, in your area, over recent months. Not the asking prices of homes still available around you: those are requests, not results, and part of them is precisely what makes up today's unsold stock. Not the regional median either, which aggregates the whole metropolitan area, from the most central to the most outlying, and says nothing about your street.

A useful comparison is dated. Ask for the closing date of every sale cited. In a market that has fallen five months running, a spring transaction no longer describes the same conditions as one from last month, even on the same street.

What to check before setting a price

Three checks, in this order. First, recent comparable sales, as above. Then the state of direct competition: which similar properties are available right now in your area, and how long they have been listed. A property sitting a long time at a given price tells you as much as a closed sale, because it marks the point the market has already turned down. Finally, your own file: certificate of location, seller's declaration, invoices for work done, and for a condominium the syndicate documents, the state of the contingency fund and recent board minutes.

That third check is the one most often postponed, and it is the cheapest to do in advance. A missing document surfaces at the worst moment, while an interested buyer waits, and it turns a favourable negotiation into a delay.

The four questions to ask your broker

Which specific comparable sales justify the proposed price, and when did they close? Which directly competing properties are available right now around mine? How long have they been listed? And at what point would we consider a price revision, on what observable trigger?

The fourth is the most important and the least asked. Agreeing in advance on what would trigger a revision, for instance a number of showings or a set number of weeks, replaces a discussion under pressure with a decision made calmly. In a market where stock accumulates, that is the difference between adjusting in time and being forced into it.

The calendar question

We quantify no seasonal effect: the July data does not measure that, and we will put no figure on it. What is verifiable belongs to your own organization. Gathering up-to-date comparables, preparing documents, taking photographs, freeing up showing windows: that takes weeks. Deciding in August leaves that time. Postponing the decision does not remove those weeks, it compresses them, and a compressed listing shows in the result.

What also holds outside the Montreal area

Across the province, sales are down 6% year over year, against 10% for the Montreal metropolitan area: the slowdown is therefore sharper in the metropolitan area than across Quebec as a whole. Provincial active listings reach 41,166, up 19%. July's provincial medians, $505,000 for single-family homes and $396,504 for condominiums, work as context markers, never as asking prices: the local comparable rule stays the same everywhere.