Start from the day you hand over the keys
In Quebec, many families want to move around July 1: school is out, leases end, and buyers want to move in then too. If that’s you, the listing date isn’t a free choice. It follows from your moving date.
So we count backwards. Signing at the notary’s and handing over the keys is the fixed date. Before it, you need an accepted offer. Before the offer, the time your house is on the market. And before listing, everything that has to be ready: the price, the certificate of location, the photos.
An example: a house in Brossard, keys on June 30
Notary and keys on June 30, 2027. We count about 60 days between the accepted offer and the notary, time for the buyer’s inspection and financing: so the offer should be accepted around May 1.
According to Centris, a single-family house in Brossard stayed on the market 43 days on average in Q3 2026. That puts the listing around March 19.
A week before, prep and photos: March 12. Six weeks before listing, order the certificate of location: February 5. And a week earlier, the meeting for the comparative market analysis (ACM) and the price: late January.
In other words, to hand over the keys on June 30, the first step happens in the middle of winter. That’s what surprises our clients most.
The delay people forget: the certificate of location
The buyer and their bank will want a certificate of location that shows the house as it is today. If yours is old, or you’ve added a pool, a shed, an extension or a fence since, you’ll need a new one.
Land surveyors often need several weeks, and demand rises in spring, exactly when everyone wants to sell. Ordering it before listing keeps an accepted sale from waiting on a document.
Time on the market depends on the city and the type
Again according to Centris, in Q3 2026 in Brossard a condo stayed on the market 62 days on average, against 43 for a single-family house. For the same moving date, the condo owner starts about three weeks earlier.
These numbers change every quarter and from one city to the next. That’s why we start from your city’s statistics, not a general rule.
If your date is already close
That’s no reason to give up on the date. It just means doing at the same time what usually happens one after the other: order the certificate right away, prepare the house while we set the price, and list at the right price from day one.
A price that’s too high costs weeks, and those are exactly the weeks you don’t have. On a tight timeline, the right price is the first thing that saves time.