Location: 243 Main Street North, Ontario, Canada

Price: $3,999,990 CAD (approximately $2,904,9320 USD)

Year Built: Circa 1840

Renovation Date: 1982

Renovation Architect: Mandel Sprachman

Footprint: 7,169 square feet (4 bedrooms, 6 baths)

Lot Size: 1.83 Acres

From the Agent: “Tucked just beyond the charm of Main Street and yet enveloped in its own timeless tranquility, this extraordinary residence feels lifted from the pages of a French storybook—a serene oasis that seems to exist outside of time. Set on over 1.8 acres and bordered by a private waterfall and the meandering Eramosa River, the property invites exploration and reminds you of the quiet wonder of nature. The interior balances warmth and function, with four bedrooms and six bathrooms. It’s easy to forget the world here, though Rockwood’s cafes and boutiques are just steps away, and downtown Guelph is a mere 15-minute drive.”

Welcome to Ask a Realtor, an advice column about the ins and outs of home finding, renting, buying, and selling from expert real estate agent Nicole Reber. Have a question? Submit it here.

Q: What is the #1 most important thing when showing a house to sell?

A: When you decide to sell, there needs to be acceptance that your relationship with your home is entering a new phase. There’s a distinct psychological and physical difference between the house that you live in and the house that you sell. The personal photos come down, and depending on taste there may be an infusion or detox of throw pillows and coffee table books. The faster you can resolve that change is coming, the better your chances of a positive experience of selling your house.

One of the key parts of the acceptance portion is acknowledging that there is an element of competition that drives the homebuying process. Approaching it from that basis, you’ll be able to make clearer decisions about how you present and react to scenarios along the way—not just for the initial showing.

That being said, I’m not for utter depersonalization. In fact, when showing homes to clients, I’ve often seen how items belonging to the owners—a favorite record tucked in the front of a shelf, a personal fragrance strategically left on a counter—can create commonalities that allow prospective buyers to see themselves in the house more clearly. I’ve had a client go into a bathroom and see a drawing of an obscure upstate New York amusement park only to find out that the owners were from the same place that the clients fell in love. Sometimes those signs allow you to fall even harder for a house and make the move to write an offer (as said client ended up doing). It’s hard to bet against kismet on something as personal as a home.

Balancing how much of your own personal history to weave into the story of your house while taking away items that highlight potentially too much information (in L.A. you see a lot of personal Grammy collections…) is complex. Make a house too “every person” that it becomes bland and unidentifiable—that is an enemy to the selling process, as you compete without a pitch. In today’s market, I often see that owners who choose a color or a more personal finish attract more buyers, as people are trained to see those elements and register the personal decisions, and thus time and cost, with the quality of the final product. Don’t try to make your house like everyone else’s, but if the market allows, do take the time to refresh some elements prior to listing. Look at the competition in your area and see what elements the record sales had that you can incorporate into your home. Did they retile a bathroom with a vibrant burgundy or turquoise that makes you feel like you’re on vacation, or did they just have a few standout pieces of art or furniture that made you want to invest in your own collection to decorate the home after making it yours?

That being said, every home sale comes with its own timing. Sometimes you’re unexpectedly selling to try to level up to your own dream house, or you have to move for an unexpected job change. I’m a full believer in setting a house goal every year and working on it, no matter how big or small, so that when you go to sell your property, you have items to put on your brag sheet of what you added during your tenure. This allows you to take advantage of an opportunity in the market, or at least have a little less stress if you don’t have time to do extensive prep before putting your house up for sale. Depending on where you live and the time of year you’re in (hard to redo a roof in the snowy winter), sometimes you can invest both the time and cost into some larger maintenance items prior to going on the market. Other times, you’re just trying to take advantage of a busy market and declutter and paint and go. 

Markets and consumer confidence can change in a matter of weeks but if you focus on identifying the most likely person to buy your house and keying into how to make your product the most desirable to that consumer with the time you have, you’ll be in a better place. Grab some bougie soap, fill your fridge with fancy seltzers and local wine, and maybe have a little goodie bag with a handwritten note about your favorite restaurants and things about living in the neighborhood. You’re selling a home, but you’re also selling the dream of the person they’ll be in that home. 

Top illustration by Ana Galvañ.

Have a burning real estate question or want a realtor’s advice about the ins and outs of home finding, renting, buying, or selling? Ask our expert columnist!

Questions will be anonymized and may be edited for publication. Content shown in this column includes fact-specific advice, limited by the context given. We recommend consulting a licensed professional for your individual needs.

It’s already difficult enough to buy your first home. Between legalese, inspections, financing—and the high interest rates and home prices—prospective new homeowners enter the process with a lot to learn and a multitude of risk factors.

This is where having a competent, dedicated buyer’s agent can be particularly helpful. I learned this all too well after a months-long search for a home was nearing completion. My realtor negotiated with the seller to make certain repairs or reduce the price, and recommended a smart inspector who was familiar with the building’s typology and quirks; she even shouted at the guy scoping the sewer for doing a half-assed job. It all relayed the importance of the agent, who provides technical assistance and some peace of mind.

Those fees are currently being reconfigured after the 2024 National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit that resulted in the elimination of the common structure by which realtors are compensated. Prior to 2024, the seller would negotiate the commission with their agent—typically five to six percent of the home sale cost—which would often be “baked in” to the sale price and split between both agents. Plaintiffs argued that this created “price fixing,” because buyer’s agents would steer their clients away from homes where the seller had negotiated a lower realtor fee. Today, seller agents are no longer allowed to post buyer broker fees on Multiple Listing Services, which makes for a murkier environment for new homebuyers—especially those without cash to spare. While those in support of the changes have argued that, overall, they will help reduce costs for buyers and sellers, it’s highlighting a particular pain point in the home buying process, wherein experienced sellers (and those who own pricier homes) could be benefitting more than those entering the process for the first time. 

At their core, buyer’s agents can be essential to a smoother process: One Reddit query on the subject reveals several stories from homebuyers about how their realtors helped them make sensible offers, negotiate seller concessions for repairs, and even get owners in to tour homes before they went on the market. There were plenty of responses from those who claim they are brokers, too; many who (surprisingly calmly) explained that the amount of work—managing multiple parties and communications, understanding costs of repairs and construction, rapidly responding to bidding wars, and more—is a full-time job, and most working buyers wouldn’t have a market advantage without their services.

For decades, this was generally an accepted reality and realtors would be compensated through sellers, who often pay buyer’s agent fees out of sales proceeds. After the NAR settlement, buyers must now sign a written agreement with any realtor who is part of the NAR stipulating how much the buyer will pay their agent before touring homes, according to the New York Times. This adds a whole new set of complications to an already-complex process: U.S. News and World Report notes that if a seller is unwilling to compensate the buyer’s agent with their proceeds, the buyer will have to pay out of pocket for those costs. Though homebuyer behaviors will continue to shift over time as the public adjusts to the new realities of searching for the perfect agent at the right price, one realtor source told U.S. News that some buyers are foregoing representation entirely for fear that hiring the necessary help would lead to costs they couldn’t spare. 

The Urban Institute predicted last year that such a scenario wouldn’t be common, and the homebuying process would likely keep to the typical “sellers pay buyer’s agent fees out of sales proceeds” process, but each individual fee structure is now up for reinvention, including charging flat fees instead of percentages.

Flat fees, says Chicago realtor Susannah Ribstein, work well for real estate companies that deal in high volumes, but she says, “it’s very difficult for agents to provide thorough one-on-one service when working with a large number of clients at once.” For first-time buyers, or those who might have less available funds to buy a home, opting for a flat-fee structure might be advantageous on paper. Similarly, brokers may opt to offer a range of á la carte services—which Ribstein says is more likely to be appealing to an entry-level buyer—like writing offers or helping with the home search only. These structures might save some money upfront, but could spell trouble down the road.

“No matter how educated they are, the consumer cannot price in advance the value of the service,” Ribstein says. “You can choose to pay an agent less money for less service, but you can’t know in advance what the dollar value of that reduced service may be. Are you totally fine with the level of service provided by this $1,000 agent, or will it result in you not finding out about something that’s going to cost you $50,000 down the line?” Both flat fees and an á la carte structures are not new in the industry, she says, but they could become more widespread as brokers work to navigate new uncertainties that directly affect their take-home pay.

The Urban Institute report states that the post-NAR settlement environment will likely lead to lower realtor fees, proven by The Mortgage Report, which shows that buyer commissions have dropped from 2.51 percent in the first quarter of 2023 to 2.36 percent at the end of 2024. But they also state that it will significantly benefit sellers with more expensive homes. “More experienced buyers may need fewer brokerage services, cutting their costs. As a result, first-time homebuyers who are more likely to buy a less expensive home will realize less savings from this settlement than a repeat homebuyer, which could exacerbate the disadvantage they already face in today’s market,” reads the paper.

NPR covered the issue of flat fee structures and featured one home purchased at $10.5 million, purchased with ShopProp, a high-volume flat-fee brokerage. The story states that the flat fee saved this buyer $247,000 by paying only a flat-rate of $7,995. But perhaps that’s also the reality of possessing such wealth: One who can afford a $10.5 million home can afford to buy quickly, without regard to necessary repairs or potential opportunities for price concessions. The average home price in the US, after all, lands around $400,000; for an average American, it takes 12 years to save for a down payment, making the risk of buying that much greater. Most Americans, then, already strapped by high rent burdens and rising costs of living, might also need to weigh the simple bureaucratic risks of taking the homeownership leap.  

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images.

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