Selling a Home in Fredericton

Most pages about selling a home are written to talk you into hiring someone. This one is written to tell you what it actually costs, what you get, and when you might not need me at all.

Do you actually need a REALTOR®?

Sometimes, no. If you already have a buyer — a neighbour, a family member, someone who has been asking about your place for two years — you do not need to pay anyone a percentage to introduce you. Get a real estate lawyer, get the paperwork right, and go. Selling privately also works reasonably well when your home is the easy kind: recent, tidy, in a neighbourhood people already want, priced where the market clearly is. Those homes tend to sell no matter who is holding the sign. Where it gets expensive is everywhere else. Homes with something to explain — an older build, a finished basement of unknown provenance, a rural lot, a septic system, a roof somebody is going to ask about. Homes where the price is genuinely arguable. Homes where the first offer arrives with conditions you have not seen before. That is where the fee earns itself, and where the difference between the price you hoped for and the price you get is usually larger than the commission. Have that conversation honestly with yourself before you have it with anyone else. If you decide to go it alone, the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick publishes a plain guide to selling privately, and I would rather you read it than get talked into something.

What it costs to sell in Fredericton

Here is my structure, in public, which almost nobody in this market does.

I charge 2.5% to list and sell your property.
I strongly recommend offering 2.5% to the brokerage that brings the buyer. That part is your decision, not mine — but a listing that offers less than the going rate gets shown less, and you feel that in the number at the end.
Together that is 5%, plus HST. New Brunswick's HST is 15%, so the all-in cost is 5.75% of the sale price.

On a $400,000 sale that works out to:

My side: $10,000 + $1,500 HST = $11,500
Buyer's brokerage: $10,000 + $1,500 HST = $11,500
Total: $23,000

No surprises at the closing table. If someone quotes you a percentage without saying whether it is one side or both, ask. The costs that are not commission, and that people forget:

Your lawyer. Discharging the mortgage, preparing the deed, handling the closing.
Mortgage prepayment penalty. FCNB is blunt about this one: read your mortgage agreement before you list. Breaking a fixed term early can cost thousands, and it is far better to know in August than to find out in November.
Moving, and the overlap. If your purchase and sale do not close the same day, you are carrying two places for a while.
Land transfer tax is not yours. New Brunswick's 1% transfer tax is normally the buyer's cost, not the seller's.

What the listing fee actually buys

A sign on the lawn and an MLS® entry is not a marketing plan. This is what goes into a Hamel Realty listing as standard.

Capturing the home properly

Professional photography. Not phone photos. The first showing happens on a screen and it lasts about four seconds.
Matterport 3D tour, so a buyer in Alberta or Ontario can walk your house at midnight before they ever book a flight.
Drone and aerial photography, which matters enormously on rural and acreage properties where the lot is half the story.
Floor plans, because "1,800 square feet" tells a buyer nothing about whether their furniture fits or where the kids would sleep.
Virtual staging where a room needs help being understood — always clearly disclosed as virtual, never presented as the real thing.

Getting it in front of buyers

MLS® and REALTOR.ca, written properly rather than generated.
Online listing and digital marketing across the platforms buyers actually search.
Cinematic video, produced and edited, not a phone walk-through.
Social media video and Reels, pushed through channels that already have a local audience rather than posted and abandoned.
Print marketing, which still reaches the buyers who are not scrolling.

Reaching the people who bring buyers

Agent-to-agent marketing. A large share of buyers arrive holding another REALTOR®'s hand. Getting your home in front of those agents directly is one of the least visible and most effective things I do.
REALTOR® open houses, so the agents with active buyers have walked your home before their clients ask about it.
Public open houses, when the property is the kind that benefits from them. Some are; some are not, and I will tell you which yours is.

And the part that is hardest to put in a bullet

Negotiating. Reading an offer properly, knowing which conditions matter and which are noise, and holding a position when holding it is worth money. It is the least visible line on this list and usually the most valuable.

Pricing, and why the first two weeks decide everything

A home gets one run at a fresh audience. Every serious buyer working with an agent in Greater Fredericton sees your listing in the first fortnight, and what they conclude in that window is difficult to undo. Price it correctly and you are negotiating from strength. Price it high "to leave room" and the people who would have paid the most never come, the listing goes stale, and the price reductions that follow tell everyone watching that something is wrong with it. Homes that sell below their real value usually got there by starting above it. I go through this properly before we list. Here is how I work out what a Fredericton home is worth, and why your Service New Brunswick assessment is not the answer.

Getting the house ready

I spent years in residential construction before I sold real estate, and it changes what I notice walking through your home. Most of what I suggest is small. Paint, light, decluttering, the door that sticks, the tap that drips while a buyer is standing there deciding whether this house has been looked after. Buyers cannot assess a furnace, so they use the things they can assess as a proxy for everything they cannot. Sometimes it is bigger, and then I will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing. A roof with two years left is a real negotiating point for every buyer who walks in, and there is a genuine calculation about replacing it versus pricing for it. I will do that calculation with you rather than reflexively telling you to spend money. And sometimes the answer is: do nothing, we list it Thursday.

How a sale actually runs

Evaluation. I come through, look at the house properly, and give you a range with the comparable sales behind it.
Plan and prepare. What to do, what to skip, and when to list.
Marketing. Photography, Matterport, drone, video, copy that is written rather than generated.
Live on MLS®. Showings, feedback, and honest reporting of what buyers are actually saying.
Offers. Every offer carries a price, an expiry, conditions and a deposit. FCNB is clear that if you do not respond before the expiry, the buyer is no longer bound by it. We go through all of it together before you sign anything.
Conditions. Financing, inspection, sometimes water tests or a septic inspection. This is where deals wobble and where having someone who understands buildings is worth having.
Closing. Lawyers do their part, keys change hands.

What the market is doing for sellers right now

Last updated 29 August 2026. Benchmark prices: MLS® Home Price Index, New Brunswick Real Estate Association boards, July 2026. Sales activity: CREA.

Fredericton composite benchmark: $361,100, up 5.9% year over year, 25.1% over three years and 48.6% over five
Fredericton single-family benchmark: $363,800, up 6.0% year over year, 25.4% over three years and 48.1% over five
Fredericton home sales were down 15.1% year over year.
For context, province-wide: composite $344,000 (up 6.7%), single-family $345,500 (up 6.9%), 970 sales against 1,484 new listings

Read that carefully, because it is the whole story for a seller right now. Prices are still up. But fewer homes are actually changing hands while new listings keep arriving, which means buyers have more to choose from and less urgency than they did a year ago. Homes that are priced and presented properly are still selling well. Homes that are not are sitting. A year ago the market forgave a lot of mistakes. It is less forgiving now. Those benchmark prices are Fredericton's own, not the provincial figure most sites quote — Fredericton runs about $17,000 above the province. The MLS® Home Price Index also publishes a benchmark at neighbourhood level, and the spread across this city is wide. If you want to know what it says about your specific area before you price anything, ask me.

Before you list, two things worth reading

Start with what your home is actually worth. My home evaluation page explains why your Service New Brunswick assessment is not your market value, and why the online estimators struggle in a market like this one. Then look at your own area. The Fredericton neighbourhoods page carries the benchmark price for all 21 areas the board reports. Two of them have barely moved this year while the region is up 5.9% — if yours is one of them, that changes how you price. If you are buying as well as selling, buying a home in Fredericton covers what the purchase side actually costs. Shorter questions are answered on the Fredericton real estate FAQ.

Get a straight answer about your home

No fee, no obligation, and no pressure to list. Call or text (506) 261-7373, email info@hamelrealty.com, or send a message below. I sell across Fredericton, Oromocto, Hanwell, New Maryland, Lincoln, Kingsclear, Douglas, Burton, Rusagonis and the surrounding rural communities.