Price it where the market is,
not where you hope.

Pricing is where I watch sellers make the most expensive mistake of the whole transaction, and it almost always comes from the same place — pricing off hope instead of evidence. The market does not care what you paid, what you owe, or what the place across the street listed for and never sold. It cares what comparable homes have actually closed at lately. Getting that number right is the difference between selling well and chasing the market down for two months.

Start with a real read on the market

Before any specific number, you need an honest picture of where prices are. As of April 2026, Greater Vancouver REALTORS reported the following benchmark prices region-wide — Burnaby tracks the regional pattern, though pockets and property types vary:

Source: Greater Vancouver REALTORS, April 2026 benchmark prices (MLS® HPI). The region's overall sales-to-active-listings ratio was 13.5% — historically, a ratio sustained below about 12% signals downward price pressure, above 20% upward. April 2026 sat in balanced-to-buyer territory.

That backdrop is the context for every pricing decision. In a softer market buyers have choice and patience, so an overpriced home does not get the benefit of the doubt — it gets skipped.

What a CMA actually does

A comparative market analysis is the working tool. It pulls recent closed sales of genuinely similar homes — same property type, similar size and condition, same or an adjacent Burnaby neighbourhood, ideally within the last 60 to 90 days — and adjusts for the differences between them and your home. A finished basement, a corner lot, lane access, a newer roof: each gets a dollar adjustment. Then I read it against the active and expired listings to see what you are competing with and what buyers have already rejected.

A CMA is not a BC Assessment value and not a formal appraisal. BC Assessment is a mass figure set as of July 1 of the prior year for tax purposes; it routinely lags the market and misreads individual homes. Price off the CMA. I have seen assessments sit six figures away from where a home actually sold, in both directions.

The Burnaby twist: two buyers, two prices

Here is the part most pricing advice skips, and it is specific to Burnaby right now. Since Bill 44 and the R1 SSMUH rules, a great many detached lots can be redeveloped into three to six units. That means your lot may have two values: what an end-user family will pay to live in the house, and what a builder will pay for the redevelopment upside. Those are different numbers, and the gap can be large — or, on a lot that does not pencil for development, nonexistent.

A CMA that only looks at end-user comps will misprice a development-grade lot, and pricing to the wrong audience is the costliest error I see. Deciding whether you are selling a house, a development site, or both — and pricing accordingly — is often worth more than any staging dollar. If your lot might be a build site, work through the sell / hold / build / co-develop question before you set a price.

Why an aspirational list price costs you

"Let's list high and leave room to negotiate" feels safe and does the opposite. A high price suppresses the showings that matter most — the first two weeks, when a fresh listing gets its peak traffic. Motivated buyers filter past it. The listing ages, days on market climb, and you end up cutting the price, which signals weakness and invites lowball offers. The home then sells for less than a correctly priced listing would have achieved, just slower and with more stress. A home priced at or just under fair value creates competition instead of avoiding it.

Key Takeaways

• 01.Price off recent comparable closed sales, not BC Assessment or hope.
• 02.April 2026 was a balanced-to-buyer market (13.5% sales-to-active) — overpriced homes sit.
• 03.Many Burnaby lots have two values — end-user and builder. Identify your buyer before you price.
• 04.Pricing high doesn't create negotiating room; it kills early momentum.

This guide is general information as of June 2026 and is not financial or appraisal advice. Market figures are region-wide and change monthly; your specific home's value depends on its own comparables. Get a property-specific read before listing.