The list date is the only date that matters

Most people plan a move around the day they want to be in the new house. It is the wrong end of the problem. That day is an output. The only date you actually control is the day your own home goes on the market, and every other date in the move is downstream of it.

The arithmetic, in full

Two intervals decide everything. Median days from list to a firm offer in E01 through E03 is 12. A standard firm-to-close on an Ontario residential resale is 45 days. Add them and a sale takes 57 days from the day the sign goes up to the day the money moves.

So if the house you want has a possession date, subtract 57 days from it. That is your list date. List on it and the two closings meet. List after it and you are buying a gap -- rent, storage and a second move. List well before it and you are buying an overlap, which is bridge financing.

A gap costs rent. An overlap costs interest. Landing on the date costs nothing, and it is the only one of the three that is free.

Why this is not on any listing page

Because a listing page is written for a buyer with nothing to sell. It shows a price, a room count and a possession date, and it assumes the possession date is a convenience rather than a constraint. For someone who already owns a home in the east end, the possession date is the single most expensive number on the page, and it is the one nobody does the arithmetic on.

That is why every property on this site carries its list date instead of just its possession date. It is the same information, moved to the end of the calculation you were going to have to do anyway.

What actually moves the number

• Days on market. The 12-day figure is a median across three districts. A correctly priced semi in South Riverdale beats it. An over-priced detached in the Beaches does not, and every day it sits pushes your list date earlier next time.
• Condition of title. A private lane, an open building permit or an unregistered easement can add two weeks between firm and close, and it will be discovered after you have committed to a date, not before.
• The other side's lender. A buyer whose financing condition runs long compresses the firm-to-close window without moving the closing, which is a squeeze on your movers, not on your lawyer.

None of these change the shape of the calculation. They change the size of the buffer you should be holding, which is a different decision and a smaller one.

The one thing to do first

Pick the house you would move to today -- not to buy it, just to price the move. Take its possession date, subtract 57 days, and put that date in your calendar. If it has already passed, that house was never available to you, and knowing that in September is worth considerably more than discovering it in March.