The Complete Seller’s Guide

Why Work With a REALTOR®

• Pricing expertise — an agent prices from real comparable sales, not guesswork or online estimates.
• Marketing reach — professional photography, MLS® exposure, and a buyer network you can’t reach on your own.
• Negotiation on your behalf, handling every offer, counter, and condition.
• Someone who reads the paperwork for a living. Every form in this guide, we’ve filled out hundreds of times.

Step 1: Prepare Your Home

First impressions drive both the price you get and how quickly you sell. Before your home goes live:

• Declutter and depersonalize so buyers can picture themselves living there.
• Handle small repairs — a sticking door or a leaky faucet costs little to fix but reads as neglect to a buyer.
• Curb appeal matters — it’s the first thing every buyer sees, often before they even step inside.
• Talk to your agent about staging if your home is vacant or heavily furnished.

Step 2: Price Your Home

Your agent prepares a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) — a review of recent comparable sales, active competition, and current market conditions — to recommend a list price.

Step 3: The Listing Paperwork

The Multiple Listing Agreement (MLA)

This is the contract between you and the brokerage authorizing us to list and market your property. It sets out:

• The list price and the term of the agreement (how long it runs).
• The commission you’ll pay on a successful sale.
• What’s included in the sale — fixtures, appliances — and what isn’t.

Property Condition Disclosure Statement (PCDS)

An optional but common form where you disclose known issues with the property — past water damage, structural repairs, whether systems are in working order. It’s not mandatory in NL, but completing one honestly protects you: it puts what you know on the record and reduces the chance of a dispute after closing.

Step 4: Marketing & Showings

Once your paperwork is signed, your listing goes live on MLS® with professional photography and the marketing package outlined on our Sell Your Home page. From there, it’s showings — buyers and their agents touring the property — and your agent keeping you posted on feedback and interest.

Step 5: Receiving Offers

When an offer arrives, your agent presents it to you in full — price, deposit, conditions, closing date, and any included items — and walks through your options: accept, reject, or counter-offer changing terms. If more than one offer arrives, your agent presents all of them and helps you compare beyond just price (financing strength, conditions, closing date).

Once you sign, an offer is accepted — subject to whatever conditions the buyer attached.

Step 6: The Conditions Period

Most offers include conditions — usually financing and a home inspection — that need to be satisfied or waived before the sale is binding. Your part is mostly about being responsive: providing access for the inspector, and any records or follow-up information the buyer’s lender requests.

If anything changes during this period — price, dates, terms — it’s handled through a signed Amendment to the original agreement, not a new contract.

Step 7: Firm Sale

Once every condition is satisfied or waived, the deal becomes firm — fully binding on both sides. At this point your agent prepares the paperwork the sale is filed on, and your lawyer begins the closing work.

Step 8: Closing

What your lawyer does

• Discharges your existing mortgage, if you have one — obtaining a payout statement from your lender.
• Prepares the statement of adjustments, settling prepaid items like property tax or oil in the tank with the buyer.
• Finalizes the transaction and releases your net proceeds once everything settles.

Your agent also prepares your commission statement, sent to the closing lawyer and paid from the sale proceeds at closing.

Step 9: Possession Day

The lawyers finalize the transaction; the buyer’s funds and your mortgage discharge (if any) are settled between them. Possession is typically handed off later in the day, once funds and registration have cleared. Your net proceeds are released by your lawyer once everything settles, usually within a few business days.

See the Seller Closing Checklist for the full closing-week list — packing, what stays with the house, and the final walk-through.

Paperwork Glossary

Want the full breakdown of every form you'll sign, stage by stage? See The Paperwork, Explained.