Most people ask me about timing. When is the best month to list, should we wait for spring, is December a dead zone.

Timing matters less than people think. Order matters more than almost anyone expects.

Here is a recent example of what I mean.

She found the house five days before Christmas

My client was moving in with family. Between them, they found the home they wanted on December 20.

The complication was that she still owned a house in town, and the purchase depended on selling it. Every offer they wrote had to be subject to the sale of her home.

A subject to sale offer is a real ask. You are asking a seller to accept your offer and then wait while you go and sell something else. Sellers agree to that when they can see a credible plan behind it. They get nervous when they cannot.

So the plan had to exist before the offer went in, not after.

Move one: write over the holidays anyway

The instinct is to wait until January. Nobody wants to negotiate at Christmas, the reasoning goes, so why bother.

But a subject to sale offer needs runway more than it needs convenient timing. The clock on that condition starts the day the offer is accepted. Waiting two weeks to write means starting the sale two weeks later, in a market that has not changed much for the delay.

We wrote in December on purpose.

Move two: set the price before the offer went in

We sat down December 20 and priced her home before a single offer was written on the new one.

That order is not cosmetic. If you write a subject to sale offer without knowing what your own home will realistically sell for, you are guessing at the number that has to carry the whole deal. Pricing first meant the offer we wrote was one she could actually complete.

We priced for the January market, not for the quiet December one.

Move three: book the marketing before the holidays

This is the move that looks like admin and is actually strategy.

Photography, video, and marketing generally book around two weeks out, and the last two weeks of December are the hardest of the year to schedule. Nobody is shooting on December 27.

Booking it in the third week of December is the reason her home could be live on the MLS® on January 12 instead of late January. That two week difference is the whole margin on a subject to sale condition.

Move four: prep the house in December

We walked the house room by room on a December afternoon and worked out what would make it stand out for showings.

Doing that walk in December meant the work happened over the holidays, when she had time, rather than in the first week of January when everything else was competing for attention.

Move five: offer December 29, accepted December 30

We talked the offer through on Christmas Eve, wrote it on the 29th, and had it accepted the next day, subject to the sale of hers.

By December 30 she had the house she wanted held for her, a price on her own home, marketing booked, and a prep list underway. None of that would have been true if the first step had been listing her home and hoping the right house turned up later.

Move six: tour it on video for buyers who cannot come

Her home went live January 12. The buyers who ended up purchasing it were from out of town, so I walked them through the home on camera so they could move quickly if it was the right one.

Offer in hand January 25.

Five weeks, in order

Five weeks, over the slowest stretch of the year, on a deal that depended on a condition most sellers are wary of.

The order is what made it work. Reverse any two of those steps and it becomes a very different January.

What to do if you are planning both

If you are buying and selling at the same time on Central Vancouver Island, the conversation to have first is not "when should I list." It is "in what order does this need to happen, and what has to be true before I write an offer."

That usually means:

• Knowing what your current home will realistically sell for before you shop
• Talking to a mortgage broker or your lender early about how a purchase and a sale overlap, since financing structure is their call and not mine
• Understanding what a subject to sale condition does to your negotiating position, and what makes one credible to a seller
• Having your marketing and prep booked before you need them, not when you need them

Message me before you list. The order you do it in decides whether it works.

Jessica Venables, REALTOR®

Annex Real Estate Group Nanaimo, Lantzville, Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and surrounding communities

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FAQ

Can you buy a house before selling your current one in BC? Yes. It is usually done by writing an offer with a subject to sale condition, which makes your purchase conditional on selling your existing home within an agreed timeframe. Sellers weigh those offers against the strength of the plan behind them, so the more prepared your own sale is, the better that offer lands.

What is a subject to sale offer? It is an offer to purchase that is conditional on the buyer selling their current property first. The condition has a deadline, and if the buyer's home has not sold by then, the purchase typically does not proceed. Many sellers who accept one will also keep marketing their home, so timing pressure is real.

Is December a bad time to list a house in Nanaimo? Listing and negotiating are two different things. Very few homes go live in late December, but the preparation work behind a January listing has to happen in December regardless. Marketing and photography book roughly two weeks out, so booking before the holidays is often what makes an early January launch possible.

Should I sell first or buy first? There is no universal answer, and it depends on your equity, your financing, and how much certainty you need on both sides. What matters more is that the sequence is decided deliberately before you write anything. Talk to your mortgage broker about the financing side and to me about the market side.

How long does it take to sell a home over the winter on Vancouver Island? It varies by price point, property type, and area, and I would not quote a general figure without pulling current numbers for your specific situation. Ask me for a market snapshot on your home and I will send you what the recent comparable sales show.