Asking prices are a seller's wish. Sold comps are the evidence. Here is the simple method to judge whether any BC listing is fairly priced, overpriced, or worth a quick offer.
Written by Hamidreza Etebarian on and updated on
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A Surrey condo is listed at $560,000. Is that a good price or $40,000 too much? You can answer that in about ten minutes, and you do not need an agent or any insider access to do it. The trick is to look at what similar homes nearby actually sold for, not what they are asking. Right now the typical Surrey condo carries a median list price of about $509,500, or roughly $693 per square foot, so a $560,000 ask is a question worth checking, not a number to take at face value.
This guide explains what sold comparables are, why they matter more than asking prices, and the exact steps to use them to judge whether any BC listing is priced fairly, overpriced, or worth moving on quickly.
A comparable sale, often shortened to a comp, is a recently sold home that is similar to the one you are looking at. Similar means the same type of property, the same general area, a close match on bedrooms and size, and a recent sale date. Three sold two-bedroom condos in the same Burnaby neighbourhood over the last few months are strong comps for a fourth two-bedroom condo in that building. A sold detached house across town is not.
The reason comps matter is simple. An asking price is what a seller hopes to get. A sold price is what a real buyer actually paid. Only one of those two numbers is evidence. When you line up several recent sold prices for similar homes, you start to see the real market value of the home in front of you, instead of the seller's wish.
Most buyers never do this. They compare the listing to other listings, which only tells them what other sellers are hoping for. Comparing to sold prices is what professional appraisers and experienced investors do, and it is the single most useful habit a regular buyer can build.
Asking prices drift away from reality all the time. A seller might price high to leave room to negotiate, price high out of emotional attachment, or price low to start a bidding war. None of that tells you what the home is worth. Sold prices cut through it because money actually changed hands.
In British Columbia, the gap between list and sold can run in both directions. In a slower market with lots of inventory, homes often sell below asking after sitting for weeks. In a tight market with few listings, well-priced homes can sell at or above asking within days. The only way to know which world you are in is to look at recent sold data for that exact area and property type.
Across Metro Vancouver right now, the median listing sits around $1,135,000 with homes taking a median of 49 days to sell. That 49-day figure is a clue on its own, and we will come back to it. The point is that you can read the temperature of a market directly from sold and listing data, rather than guessing.
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Finding comps used to require a realtor pulling MLS data for you. On Zealty, sold prices and sold dates are visible to anyone with a free account, so you can do it yourself. Here is the approach.
On Zealty you can run a custom map search or a list search, filter by sold status, and sort by sold date to surface the most recent comparable sales. You can also save the search so Zealty emails you when new comparable sales appear.
Total price hides a lot, because no two homes are exactly the same size. The fix is price per square foot, which is simply the sale price divided by the interior square footage. It turns two differently sized homes into numbers you can compare directly.
Say a 700-square-foot condo sold for $490,000. That is $700 per square foot. A 900-square-foot condo nearby sold for $603,000, which is $670 per square foot. The bigger one costs more in total, yet it is cheaper per square foot, which often means it is the better value. Price per square foot is the great equalizer.
Local context matters here, because per-square-foot values vary widely across British Columbia. Burnaby condos currently run a median of about $911 per square foot, while Surrey condos sit closer to $693. Neither number is right or wrong. They reflect different neighbourhoods, different buildings, and different demand. The lesson is to compare a home only against others in its own market, then use price per square foot to spot the outliers within that market.
Two more numbers turn a pile of comps into real negotiating insight: the ask-to-sold ratio and days on market.
The ask-to-sold ratio compares the final sale price to the original asking price. If similar homes nearby are selling for 97 percent of their asking price, that tells you sellers in that area are typically giving up about three percent at the table. That is your starting point for what a reasonable offer might look like. If comparable homes are selling at or above asking, you have far less room, and lowball offers will simply lose.
Days on market, often shortened to DOM, is how long a listing sat before it sold. It is one of the clearest signals of pricing and demand. Right now Surrey condos are taking a median of 56 days to sell, Metro Vancouver listings around 49 days, and Coquitlam townhouses about 35 days. A home that sells in well under its local median was probably priced sharply or in high demand. A home sitting far longer than the local median is often overpriced, which can be your opening to negotiate.
Put those together and a clear picture forms. If a listing has been on the market for 80 days in an area where comps sell in 40, and nearby homes are closing at 96 percent of asking, you are looking at a property with negotiating room. If a listing is fresh and comparable homes are flying off the market at full price, you adjust your expectations and move quickly.
No two homes are identical, so the final step is to adjust for differences between your comps and the home you are judging. This is where you use judgment, not just arithmetic.
The goal is not a perfect formula. The goal is an informed estimate. After looking at three to five comps, converting to price per square foot, checking ask-to-sold ratios and days on market, and adjusting for condition and features, you will land on a realistic value range for the home. If the asking price sits inside or below that range, it is fairly priced. If it sits well above, you have evidence to negotiate or to walk away.
You can do all of this on Zealty with a free account. Sold prices, sold dates, and full MLS pricing history are available once you sign in, alongside price changes, expirations, and original list prices, which is exactly the data you need to calculate ask-to-sold ratios and spot overpricing. Zealty also shows assessed values and AI-powered OfferValue estimates from Offerland as extra reference points.
Start with a list or map search in the area you are considering, filter to recently sold homes that match your target on type, size, and bedrooms, and sort by sold date. Compare the numbers, do the per-square-foot math, and you will judge listings with the same evidence a professional uses. None of this guarantees a steal, and that is not the point. The point is that you make decisions on real data instead of a seller's hopeful asking price.
See recent sold prices across British Columbia on Zealty and start building your own comps.
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