On timing
If this is not the right time for you to sell, I will say so. I would rather tell you to wait a year than take a listing I cannot do anything with.
Selling in St. John's and the Avalon
Find out what your home is worth. Then decide.
A proper evaluation from someone who has been selling homes on the Avalon for more than thirty years. Comparable sales, a realistic price range, and an honest read on your timing. There is no cost, and no expectation that you list.
Doreen Husk · RE/MAX Realty Specialists · Hall of Fame member · English and French. Or skip the form and call the cell directly: 709-693-4400.
Before you fill anything in
Three things I will tell you
In Doreen's words.
On price
I will give you the price the evidence supports, not the price that wins me the listing. Any agent can tell you a big number. It stops being flattering the day you have to drop it.
On feedback
I will pass on the showing feedback you would rather not hear, the same week I get it. You cannot fix a problem nobody has told you about.
Free · No obligation
What is your home worth today?
Start with the address. That is what lets Doreen pull the sales that actually compare to your home. Everything after that is optional, and the more you tell her, the tighter the range comes back.
Here is what happens next. You get an email confirming the request arrived. Doreen calls or emails you within one business day, usually the same day. If the property is straightforward she can often give you a range on that first call. For the full evaluation she will want to walk through the house, which takes about forty minutes, and you get the comparable sales she used so you can check the work yourself.
There is no charge and no obligation to list. A good number of people ask because they are still deciding whether to sell at all. That is a perfectly good reason to ask.
Prefer to just talk? Call or text 709-693-4400, or email dhusk@remaxavalon.ca.
Pricing strategy
Priced from evidence, not from optimism
The list price is the biggest decision in the whole sale, and it gets made before anything else happens.
Your number comes from homes near you that have actually closed in the last few months, adjusted for the things only a person standing in your kitchen can see. The finished basement two streets over. The comparable that sat for ninety days because of an oil tank. The renovation that cost a fortune and does not read as a fortune to a buyer.
Two things get confused often enough here to be worth saying plainly. Your municipal assessment is not market value. It is a tax figure, calculated on a lag, and it can sit tens of thousands either side of what your home would sell for. And an online estimate is a computer averaging a postal code. Neither one has been inside your house.
St. John's homes are currently selling at or slightly above asking, so the price you set is close to the price you get. That cuts both ways. Set it right and the entire qualified buyer pool sees your home in the first two weeks, while the listing is new and it is sitting in every agent's morning email. Set it high and you spend that attention on nobody, then reduce. The reduction is public and it is permanent, and every buyer who sees one asks the same question about your house. It is never a flattering question.
There is a quieter version of the same problem. A home that sells well under asking was not always priced wrong — sometimes the offer simply was not negotiated. When you interview agents, ask about both.
- Recent closed sales, not asking prices
- Adjustments for condition, updates, lot and location
- What your home is competing against right now, listing by listing
- A range, with what the top and the bottom of it would cost you in time
Money, straight
What it costs to sell here, in real numbers
Most agent pages will not put a figure to any of this. You cannot plan a move without one.
| Cost | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Real estate commission | Negotiable, and agreed in writing before your home is listed. There is no standard, set or recommended rate in Newfoundland and Labrador. Whatever is agreed, HST at 15 per cent applies on top of it. |
| Lawyer's fees | Roughly $1,000 to $1,800 plus HST for a straightforward sale, covering the deed, the payout and closing. |
| Mortgage discharge registration | $100 flat to register the release or transfer of your mortgage under the provincial Registry of Deeds fee schedule. |
| Mortgage payout penalty | Only if you are breaking a closed term early. Your lender will quote it in writing. On a fixed rate it can run to several thousand dollars, so ask before you agree to a closing date. |
| Land transfer tax | None. Newfoundland and Labrador does not have one. Your buyer pays a Registration of Deeds fee on the purchase and again on their mortgage, and that is their cost, not yours. |
| Pre-listing preparation | Paint, cleaning, small repairs, sometimes an updated survey. Usually a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and Doreen will tell you where to stop. |
| Moving | Budget it early. It is the cost that surprises people most, particularly if you are moving off the island. |
Bring your mortgage balance to the walkthrough and Doreen will work the whole thing backwards to a net proceeds figure before you list, so you know what you actually walk away with rather than what the sale price says.
The marketing plan
Item by item, so you can hold Doreen to it
Listing on MLS® is the starting line, not the strategy. Here is the rest of it in a form you can print, tick off, and take with you when you interview somebody else.
- Professional photography Booked as part of the listing and shot on a day chosen for the light, not for convenience. Buyers decide from a thumbnail.
- Floor plan and measurements Taken properly and published with the listing. A buyer in Alberta will not make an offer on square footage they cannot picture.
- Listing copy written for the buyer Not padded, not written to fill an MLS® field. Anything that has been repaired or remediated is stated plainly, because the things you leave out come back at the inspection.
- MLS® and REALTOR.ca, same day Full syndication to the systems every agent and buyer in the province actually searches.
- Out to Doreen's own list first Past clients, referral partners and the agents who phone her when they have a buyer looking. Some homes find their buyer before they go live.
- The RE/MAX relocation network Agents across Canada and the United States sending buyers to St. John's. A meaningful share of Avalon demand comes from away, and that buyer has to hear about your house from somewhere.
- Paid social and digital promotion Your listing put in front of buyers in the metro who are not sitting on REALTOR.ca all day.
- Direct outreach to agents with matching buyers Emailed and phoned, not just posted and hoped for. The first two weeks matter more than the two months after them.
- Sign, lockbox and scheduled access Showings coordinated around your household, not around Doreen's calendar.
- Feedback after every single showing Collected and sent to you the same week, in the buyer's own words.
- A weekly written update while you are on the market Views, showings, feedback, and what the competing listings did. You should never have to ring up and ask how it is going.
- Open houses where they earn their keep Some homes and some price points draw real buyers to an open house. Some draw the neighbours. Doreen will tell you which yours is.
The sequence
What actually happens, and when
Most St. John's sales run about eight to twelve weeks from listing to closing. The first two weeks do most of the work.
01
The walkthrough
About forty minutes. Doreen looks at the house the way a buyer and an inspector will, and you talk about price, timing, and whether selling now actually serves you.
02
The evaluation
You get the comparable sales, a price range and a net proceeds estimate. Take it away and think about it. This is not the point where you sign anything.
03
The listing agreement
Commission, term, what is included and how to end it early, all in writing before anything gets booked. Read it. Ask about the cancellation terms — of Doreen and of everyone else you interview.
04
Preparation and photography
Usually one to three weeks, depending on what needs doing. Nobody photographs a house that is not ready. A bad photo shoot cannot be undone once the listing is live.
05
Launch
Live on MLS® and REALTOR.ca, out to Doreen's list, out to agents with matching buyers, and promoted online. It all lands inside the same forty-eight hours, on purpose.
06
The first two weeks
Your peak exposure. Showings, feedback and a weekly report. If the traffic is wrong, you talk about why before you talk about dropping the price.
07
Offers, conditions, closing
Every offer presented in full, the conditions and the dates explained in plain language, and the terms negotiated as hard as the number. Then Doreen stays on the file through financing, inspection and closing day.
Before the photographs
Where preparation money is actually worth spending
You do not need to renovate. You need the house to photograph well and survive an inspection. When Doreen walks through she will tell you which jobs pay for themselves and which ones to leave for the buyer.
- Declutter hard The goal is a home a buyer can imagine as theirs, not a museum of yours.
- Deep clean, windows included It reads as well maintained in every photograph, and it costs a fraction of what it returns.
- Paint tired rooms a neutral colour The highest return of any preparation dollar, reliably.
- Fix the small broken things Sticking doors, dripping taps, dead bulbs, cracked switch plates. Buyers add them up and quietly assume there are more they cannot see.
- Tidy the exterior and the approach The photograph buyers see first is the one taken from the street, in whatever weather we get.
- Gather the paperwork Survey, permits, warranties, roof and furnace dates, and your oil tank certificate of registration.
- Deal with anything an inspector will certainly find Better you know now and price it in than find out during conditions, when you have lost your leverage and three weeks with it.
The Newfoundland detail that ends deals
Sort the oil tank before you list, not during conditions
This is one of the most common reasons an Avalon sale falls apart after the offer is accepted, and it is almost entirely preventable.
Under the provincial Heating Oil Storage Tank System Regulations, a registered tank carries a brass tag riveted to the vent pipe with an expiry date stamped into it. Once that date passes the tank is no longer registered, and it is against the regulations to put oil into it. A supplier will refuse to fill it. None of that depends on whether the tank looks perfectly sound, and plenty of expired tanks do.
The insurance side is stricter than the regulation. Insurers commonly refuse an outdoor steel tank past roughly fifteen years and an indoor one past roughly twenty-five, and refuse any tank whose age nobody can establish. Since 29 July 2015, a single-walled steel tank located outside cannot be registered in this province at all, new or existing. If your buyer cannot get insurance, their lender will not release the money, and a firm sale quietly turns into no sale.
So before you list, go out and read the tag. If the expiry is close, or the tank is outdoor steel, deal with it now while you control the timing and can collect quotes at your own pace. Replacing a tank on your schedule costs a fraction of what it costs on day twenty-eight of a conditional offer, with a buyer who has already booked the movers.
The rules differ for indoor tanks, outdoor tanks and double-walled systems, so confirm your own situation with a licensed inspector. What Doreen can tell you is exactly what it does to a sale, because she has watched it happen.
- Find the brass tag on the vent pipe and read the expiry date
- Keep the Certificate of Registration with your closing documents
- If the tank is outdoor single-walled steel, assume it needs replacing before you list
- Get the work done and the paperwork filed before the photographs, not after the offer
Who you are hiring
Thirty years, and a buyer pool that reaches past the overpass
Experience is only worth something if you can point at what it does for you. Here is what this experience does.
Doreen has been selling real estate in St. John's and across the Avalon for more than thirty years, and she is a member of the RE/MAX Hall of Fame. That is not a certificate for the wall. It means volume, sustained over decades, which in practice means your situation is not the first of its kind she has handled: the estate sale with four siblings in three provinces, the house that has to close the same day as the purchase, the low offer from an agent who is testing whether you will flinch.
A large share of Avalon buyers are not from here. They are coming back from Alberta or Ontario, moving for work at Memorial or with the health authority, or retiring home. Doreen has spent most of her career as a relocation specialist, moving people to and from every part of Canada and the United States. When an agent in Calgary or Toronto has a client heading for St. John's, there is a fair chance the call comes to her. For a seller, that is the entire point: a buyer who is not already in your city is a buyer your neighbour's listing may never reach.
She works in English and in French. And she still answers her own phone. If you ring the number on this page, you get Doreen, not an assistant and not a call centre.
- More than thirty years Selling in St. John's and across the Avalon Peninsula.
- RE/MAX Hall of Fame Awarded for sustained production over a career, not for a single good year.
- Relocation specialist Buyers and vendors moved to and from every part of Canada and the United States.
- English and French Both languages, throughout the transaction and the paperwork.
Commission and the agreement
What you are signing, before you sign it
You are entitled to a clear answer on fees before you are sitting at a kitchen table with a pen in your hand.
Commission in Newfoundland and Labrador is negotiable. There is no standard rate, no fixed rate, and no rate set by any board or brokerage. Anyone who tells you the going rate is such-and-such is either mistaken or hoping you will not ask. What you pay is what you and Doreen agree to, and it goes into the listing agreement in writing before your home goes anywhere.
What you will get is the number she is proposing, what it covers, and what it would look like at a different figure, all before you sign. HST at 15 per cent applies to commission.
The compensation offered to the brokerage that brings the buyer comes out of what you and Doreen agree, and how much is offered is your decision, set out in that same agreement. She will tell you honestly how that choice tends to affect showings in this market, and then it is your call to make.
The listing agreement also sets the term and the terms for ending it early. Ask about those, here and everywhere else you interview. An agent who is confident in the plan does not need to trap you inside it.
- Negotiable, with no standard or set rate
- Agreed and in writing before your home is listed
- What is included stated line by line, so nothing turns up later as an extra
- The term and the cancellation terms explained before you sign
Common questions
Seller FAQ
Mostly money questions, because those are the ones people are least comfortable asking out loud.
Commission is negotiable and agreed in writing before listing — there is no standard or set rate in this province. On top of that, budget roughly $1,000 to $1,800 plus HST for your lawyer, $100 to register the discharge of your mortgage, any payout penalty if you are breaking a closed term early, preparation costs, and the move itself. There is no land transfer tax in Newfoundland and Labrador. Doreen will give you a net proceeds estimate before you list so you know the figure you actually walk away with.
The median St. John's single detached home took 44.5 days to sell in the second quarter of 2026, down from 52 days a year earlier. Add roughly thirty to sixty days from accepted offer to closing, depending on the dates you agree. Price and condition move that number far more than the season does.
No. Assessment is a tax figure calculated on a lag, and it can sit tens of thousands of dollars above or below market value in either direction. It is not a valuation, and buyers' agents do not price from it.
Usually not. Major renovations rarely return their full cost at sale. Paint, decluttering, cleaning and small repairs almost always do. Doreen will walk through and tell you which specific jobs are worth doing on your house and which ones to leave for the buyer to do their own way.
Spring brings the most buyers and also the most competition. With inventory at record lows, a well-prepared home in November is competing against very few rivals, and the buyers still shopping in winter tend to be the serious ones. September through November is underrated here. Your circumstances matter more than the calendar.
Very common, and manageable. It comes down to how the closing dates and the conditions are structured, and in which order you commit. This is precisely where thirty years of doing it is worth something. Doreen will map the options out before you commit to either side.
You sit down and work out honestly which of the three things is wrong: the price, the presentation, or the exposure. Usually the showing traffic tells you which. And the listing agreement sets out how to end it early, which is a question worth asking of any agent before you sign with them.
It is better if you are not. Buyers look more carefully and speak more freely when the owner is not in the house. Doreen coordinates the access and collects the feedback afterwards.
No, and no. Plenty of people ask because they are deciding whether to sell at all, or simply want to know where they stand. That is a good enough reason.
Get in touch
Start with the number
Send the address and Doreen will do the work. If the answer turns out to be that this is not your year to sell, she will tell you that too.