Market evaluation

What a market evaluation is, and what it is not

A market evaluation is an opinion about where a specific property sits in the current market, supported by sales evidence and by the characteristics of the home. It is prepared by a real estate licensee, it is free of charge in most cases, and it exists to help you make a decision about listing.

An appraisal is a different document prepared by a different professional. An appraiser is separately qualified and regulated, and a lender orders an appraisal to protect its own position when deciding how much to lend against a property. If you need a value for a lender, for a legal matter, for a separation, or for a tax filing, an appraisal is what will be accepted and a market evaluation will not.

Both can be right about the same house and still produce different numbers, because they are answering different questions on different terms. Being clear about which one you need saves a step.

• Listing decision, or understanding your position: a market evaluation
• Mortgage, refinancing, or a lender's condition: an appraisal, ordered by the lender
• Separation, estate, or a court matter: an appraisal, and legal advice
• Property tax appeal: the assessment process, with its own deadlines

Why your assessment notice is not your asking price

Every property owner in British Columbia receives an assessment notice each January, and it is the most widely misread number in the process.

BC Assessment values property as at July 1, using sales around that date, and separately considers the physical condition and permitted use of the property as at October 31. The notice then arrives in January. So the figure on a notice you open in January 2026 is an estimate of what the property would have sold for around July 1, 2025, in the condition it was in on October 31, 2025.

Two things follow. The number is six to eighteen months behind the market by the time you are reading it, in whichever direction the market has moved. And it reflects a mass valuation process covering every property in the province, which cannot account for the condition of your roof, the quality of a renovation, or the fact that your lot backs onto an arterial road when your neighbour's does not.

It remains useful for one thing: comparing your property against your neighbours' on the same basis in the same year. As a starting point for an asking price, it is the wrong tool.

BC Assessment value versus market value

What makes a comparable sale comparable

The phrase comparable sale gets used as though similarity were obvious. It is not, and the work in an evaluation is in the adjustments rather than in the list.

A sale is useful to the extent that you can explain how it differs from the subject property and in which direction each difference pushes the price. Two houses of the same size on the same street can be separated by a finished basement, a level lot, a south-facing yard, a new roof, a legal suite, or a driveway that fits two cars. Each of those has a direction and a rough magnitude, and an evaluation that lists sales without naming the differences has skipped the analysis.

Recency matters for a specific reason: an older sale reflects the conditions of its own month rather than of this one. So does the closing date as against the sale date, because a sale agreed in March and completed in June is evidence about March.

Ask two questions about any list of comparables you are shown. How does each one differ from this home? And which sales were left out, and on what basis?

• Property type, and whether it is freehold, strata or on leased land
• Lot size, shape, slope and orientation
• Living area, and which source measured it
• Age, and the condition and age of the roof, furnace and electrical service
• Parking, suite potential, and whether a suite is legal
• The street itself: traffic, noise, and what sits behind the property
• The date the sale was agreed, not only the date it completed

Completed sales against active listings

A completed sale is a number a buyer agreed to pay. An active listing is a number a seller is asking. Those are not two versions of the same evidence.

The homes currently listed at a price tell you what you are competing against, which matters when you decide how to position your own property. They do not tell you what a buyer will pay, and a group of similar homes sitting unsold at a price is evidence that the price has not worked so far.

There is a third category worth asking about: listings that expired or were cancelled without selling. Those are the clearest evidence of where the market said no. They rarely appear in a pricing presentation, and they are among the most useful things in it when they do.

• Completed sales: what buyers paid, and when they agreed to pay it
• Active listings: your competition, and what has not sold yet at that price
• Expired or cancelled listings: prices the market declined
• Days on market for each, because a fast sale and a slow one mean different things

How to price a home in a balanced market

What the documents change

A pricing conversation held without the property documents is a conversation about a house in general rather than about yours.

For a strata unit the documents can move the number in either direction. A healthy contingency reserve fund and a depreciation report whose recommendations are being funded is a selling point. A pending special levy, or minutes showing a building envelope problem under discussion, is information a buyer will find and price in. Better for you to know first.

For a detached house the equivalent items are the title search and the permit history. A registered right of way, an easement, or a covenant limiting what can be built changes what a buyer can do with the lot. An addition or a suite built without a permit, or with a permit never finalised, is a cost and a risk that a buyer will discount for.

• Strata: Form B, bylaws, two years of minutes, depreciation report, reserve fund balance, any special levy
• Detached: title search with every registered charge explained, and the municipal permit history
• Both: the age and service record of the major systems
• Both: any inspection report in your possession, however old

Reading a strata depreciation report Contingency reserve funds and special levies

The limits of any estimate, including this one

Every value opinion carries a date, a set of assumptions and a margin, and an evaluation that presents a single confident number has hidden all three.

Ask what the range is and what would move the result to each end of it. Ask what has been assumed about the condition of the parts of the home nobody has inspected. Ask what happens to the estimate if the property does not sell within the first few weeks, because the first weeks are when the most motivated buyers already looking in your price range see it.

Then ask when the figure stops being current. A market evaluation prepared in February describes February. If you decide to list in July, it needs redoing rather than reusing, and a brokerage that offers to refresh it is telling you something useful about how the number was built in the first place.

• The range, and what moves the result to each end
• What has been assumed rather than observed
• How the estimate changes if the home does not sell in the first month
• The date the evidence was gathered, and when it should be redone

What to send with an enquiry

A useful evaluation starts from specifics. The address alone produces a general answer, because the public records describe the building rather than its condition.

Send the address, the property type, and what you know about the home that a record would not show: the work that has been done and roughly when, the systems that have been replaced, anything that is not working, and anything a past inspection identified. Say whether you are preparing to sell or reviewing your options, because the two need different answers, and give your timeframe if you have one.

• The address and the property type
• Work done, and approximately when: roof, windows, kitchen, bathrooms, electrical, plumbing
• Known problems, and anything a past inspection report flagged
• For a strata: anything you know about upcoming levies or building work
• Whether you are preparing to sell or reviewing your options, and your timeframe

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