A guide for sellers
Selling a home in Greater Saint John, and what actually happens.
Not a national template with the province swapped in. This is how it goes here: lawyers rather than escrow, deposits in the brokerage trust account, tax adjusted at closing, and oil tanks that decide sales.
Andrew Shaw
REALTOR® · REAL Broker · The Ellis Team
Live figures
What a seller is walking into right now.
102.2%
of asking price
homes sold above list in July 2026
27 days
to sell
median, against 21 a year ago
$360,000
median sale price
+5.0% on a year ago
3.3 months
until everything sells
at this pace, tilted toward sellers, vs 2.8 a year ago
734
homes you are competing with
active across the board's region in July 2026
+17.8%
above assessed value
median across 3,196 sales. Your assessment is not your price
Sold figures are the Saint John Real Estate Board region, a month behind. Live listing figures are Greater Saint John from the MLS® feed. Full sources on Market Pulse.
When to list
The year has a shape. Use it.
The question I hear every autumn is whether to list now or wait for spring. Here is what the last 5 years of this market actually did, month by month.
Median days to sell, by month
| Month | New listings | Homes sold | Median days to sell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 146 | 96 | 39 |
| Feb | 159 | 128 | 29 |
| Mar | 239 | 146 | 22 |
| Apr | 291 | 166 | 22 |
| May | 321 | 216 | 22 |
| Jun | 340 | 220 | 22 |
| Jul | 308 | 223 | 23 |
| Aug | 271 | 224 | 25 |
| Sep | 274 | 191 | 23 |
| Oct | 244 | 218 | 25 |
| Nov | 187 | 175 | 28 |
| Dec | 87 | 117 | 28 |
Spring
The fast lane, and the crowded one. June brings about 340 new listings, the most of the year, and the median sale takes roughly 22 days. Every buyer touring your home is also touring the homes that listed beside it.
Early fall
The quiet edge. September and October have sold nearly as fast as spring here, with roughly a quarter fewer new listings arriving than at the June peak, and by November buyers are absorbing nearly everything that comes to market. A ready home does not need to wait for May.
Deep winter
The slow months are real. A January listing has taken about 39 days to sell against 22 in the fastest months, with the fewest buyers looking. Unless the move is forced, this is the stretch to prepare in rather than list in.
Median of 2021 to 2026 for each calendar month, from the board’s own monthly reports for the Saint John region; each month uses the newest report that covers it, because the board revises. Days to sell for August through December come from the 2025 reports, the newest published for those months. A pattern is not a promise: any single year, and any single home, can run ahead of it or behind it. Source: Canadian MLS® Systems, CREA. Saint John and Area MLS® Residential Market Activity report, published by the New Brunswick Real Estate Board.
01
Step one: what it is actually worth.
Everything downstream depends on this, and it is the one place sellers reliably start from the wrong number.
Most people anchor to their assessment, because it is the number that arrives in the post with an official letterhead on it. It is not a valuation. It is set for taxation, it lags the market, and across 3,196 recent sales in this area the median came in 17.8% above it.
The second wrong anchor is what the neighbours listed at. A list price is an asking price, and asking prices are where a conversation starts. What matters is what comparable homes actually closed at, adjusted for the things that are different about yours.
That is the work I do before I give you a number, and I will show you the comparables rather than just the conclusion. If I think you are asking too much I will tell you, and I would rather lose the listing than take one I cannot sell.
Why overpricing costs more than it looks
A home priced right draws its strongest interest in the first two weeks, when every buyer with a saved search sees it arrive. Priced too high, it burns that window, and the price reduction that follows arrives to an audience that has already decided something is wrong with it. In July 2026 the typical sale here took 27 days; a listing that sits well past that starts attracting offers below where it would have sold in week one.
02
Step two: getting it ready.
Cheap and unglamorous beats expensive and impressive, almost every time.
Declutter before you renovate
Emptying a room does more for a photograph than painting it. Buyers here are looking at a lot of similar houses in a week, and the one they remember is the one they could picture themselves in.
Fix what an inspector will find anyway
A loose railing, a dripping valve, a cracked pane. These come back as a repair request or a price reduction during the conditional period, and they cost more then, because by that point they are leverage.
Deal with the oil tank early
Age and location decide whether the buyer can get insurance, and an uninsurable house cannot be financed. If yours is old or indoors, find out where you stand before a buyer's insurer does.
Have the well and septic paperwork ready
Outside the city this is normal and it holds up deals when it is missing. Recent water test results and a septic record answer questions before they turn into conditions.
Do not over-improve for the neighbourhood
A kitchen well above what the street supports rarely returns what it costs. I would rather tell you not to spend the money.
Photography is the one thing I will not economise on. Most buyers see your house for the first time on a phone, and the photographs decide whether there is a second time.
03
Step three: the paperwork, before the sign goes up.
Gathering this early is the difference between a smooth conditional period and a scramble. Anything missing can usually be reordered, it just takes time you will not have later.
- The deed, or your lawyer's file from when you bought
- Your most recent assessment and property tax notice
- Mortgage details, so your lender can quote a payout
- A year of heating and electricity costs, because buyers ask
- A survey or Real Property Report if you have one
- Permits for any work that needed them
- Oil tank paperwork: age, and who installed it
- Well and septic records, and any water test results
- Condo documents, if it is a condo
You will also sign a listing agreement with the brokerage. It sets the term, the price, what the brokerage is paid and when, and it normally carries a holdover clause covering buyers introduced while it was in effect. It is a contract. Read it, and ask me about any clause you would want changed, because the term and the price are not the only negotiable parts of it.
You can look up your own assessment, last recorded sale and annual tax on the property records page.
04
Step four: on the market.
The listing goes on the MLS®, which is what feeds REALTOR.ca and every agent's search. From there it reaches buyers three ways.
The largest by far is other agents' saved searches. Every buyer working with a REALTOR® in this region has criteria on file, and your home lands in their inbox the morning it is listed. That is why the first two weeks matter so much, and why the price has to be right on day one rather than after a correction.
Then the public sites, then everything I do directly: the social posts, the market data on this site, and the calls to the agents I know are working with buyers in your range.
Showings are booked through the board’s system, usually with a lockbox. You will need a plan for pets and for being out of the house at short notice, because the showing you cannot accommodate is sometimes the buyer.
There are 387 homes listed across Greater Saint John right now, at a median asking price of $399,900. Those are the ones a buyer sees beside yours.
05
Step five: offers.
An offer is a legal agreement. Once you accept it, you are bound by it, subject to whatever conditions the buyer wrote in.
Price is the headline, and it is not the whole offer. What decides whether a sale actually closes is usually everything else: how many conditions there are and how long the buyer has to satisfy them, the size of the deposit, and whether the closing date suits you.
A clean offer slightly below a messy one is often the better one to take. Two financing conditions and a fourteen-day inspection window is two more chances for the deal to end, and a month of your home being off the market if it does.
You can accept, counter, or decline. When there is more than one offer you are not obliged to give anyone a second chance, though you can, and how that is handled has rules I will walk you through at the time rather than in a guide.
The deposit goes into the listing brokerage’s trust account. Not to you, and not to a third-party escrow company, because New Brunswick does not work that way. It is credited to the buyer at closing.
06
Step six: their conditions, your risk.
Between acceptance and firm sale your house is off the market while the buyer does their checking. This is the stretch where sales here fall apart, and it is rarely about price.
Inspection
They will find something; every house has something. What matters is whether it turns into a renegotiation or a walk-away. Fixing the obvious things beforehand is what keeps this from becoming a second negotiation.
Financing
Their lender approves this specific property, and may order an appraisal. If it appraises below the sale price the buyer has to find the difference in cash, and that is when a deal renegotiates.
Insurance
The one people do not see coming. Oil tank age, knob-and-tube wiring, a wood stove without a WETT certificate, or a roof near the end of its life can make a home uninsurable, and an uninsurable home cannot be mortgaged.
Water and septic
Outside the city, a failed water test or a septic issue can end a sale or take five figures off it. Test before you list if you have any doubt.
Once every condition is satisfied and waived in writing, the sale is firm and the deposit is committed. That is the point at which it is genuinely sold.
07
Step seven: closing day.
Your lawyer does the work. There is no escrow company here, and no title company: a New Brunswick sale closes lawyer to lawyer.
Your lawyer gets a payout statement from your lender, prepares the deed, and handles the adjustments. The buyer’s lawyer sends the money, and yours pays off the mortgage, takes the commission and the legal fees, and sends you the balance. It usually lands the same day or the next, not the moment the keys move.
The adjustment sellers forget
New Brunswick bills property tax for the calendar year. If you have paid the year and sell in July, the buyer reimburses you for the part of the year they own the house, and it comes back to you on the statement of adjustments. It is your money and it is easy to miss when you are reading the final numbers.
You leave the house broom clean, with everything you agreed to include still in it, and the keys go to your lawyer or the brokerage. Cancel your insurance for the day after closing, not before, and move the utilities into the buyer’s name for closing day.
08
What selling actually costs.
Fewer line items than buying, and one of them is much larger.
Commission
Negotiated and set out in the listing agreement, normally a percentage of the sale price plus HST, paid from the proceeds at closing. Since 2024 how buyer representation is paid is negotiated openly rather than assumed, and I will explain exactly what your agreement says before you sign it.
Legal fees
Preparing the deed, discharging the mortgage, closing. Ask for a quote up front; they vary.
Mortgage discharge
An administrative fee from your lender. If you break a fixed term early there can also be a prepayment charge, which can be substantial. Ask your lender for the figure before you list.
Property tax adjustment
Usually in your favour if you have prepaid the year.
Any repairs you agreed to
From the conditional period, if it came to that.
Moving
The one everyone underestimates.
On capital gains, ask an accountant
If the home has been your principal residence throughout, the gain is generally exempt. If it was a rental, a cottage, an inherited property, or your principal residence for only part of the time you owned it, the answer is genuinely complicated and depends on facts I do not have. That is an accountant’s question, not mine, and I will not guess at it. Ask before you sell rather than at tax time.
09
The people you will need.
A shorter list than a buyer’s. Three names in each, so the choice is yours.
Lawyer
Discharges your mortgage, prepares the deed and closes the sale.
Veronica Ford · Lawson Creamer
Fred Fernandez · Fernandez Law
Darren Marr · Marr Law Office
Insurance broker
Keep your coverage in place until the day after closing, and confirm any change with them first.
Dawn Ellis · Hovey Insurance
Jeannie McKay · Carleton Fundy Mutual
Welch Insurance
Some firms run referral or reward programs. Where that applies to anyone listed here, you will hear it from me before you engage them. You are free to use anyone you like.
Thinking about selling?
Start with what it is worth.
I will look at what comparable homes actually closed at and give you a number with the reasoning attached, whether or not you list with me. For context, the benchmark home in this region is +51.7% over five years.
