Most condo sellers start working ninety days too late. They list, then react.
The market only gives you one launch. In Boston's current condo market — where inventory has been arriving and the buyer pool is deliberate rather than urgent — the first two to three weeks are the entire audience you get. Everything that determines how that window goes is decided before it opens.
Here is the schedule.
Day 90 to 75: find out what your building is going to do to you
Before you touch a wall, pull the association's paperwork. Your building is going to be part of this sale whether you address it or not.
Reserve balance, divided by unit count. That is the number a buyer's attorney will calculate.
The last five budgets. Look at the fee trajectory. If fees have been compounding at six or seven percent, that is shrinking your buyer pool every year — at 6.69 percent, every $200 a month of fee costs a buyer roughly $31,000 of purchasing power.
Twelve to twenty-four months of board minutes. This is where a capital project appears a year before it becomes an assessment. If a facade, roof, or elevator project is moving toward a vote, the difference between selling before the vote and after the disclosure is significant money — once voted, buyers price it at full value plus a risk premium.
Master insurance declarations, including the deductible. Many associations absorbed premium increases by raising the deductible rather than the fee, which moves risk to owners and is something a sharp buyer's attorney will flag.
The 6D certificate process. Know who issues it and how long it takes.
If your building has a problem, you want to know now, while you still have the option to sell ahead of it.
Day 75 to 60: get an honest number, and get it from someone who will defend it
Not an automated estimate. Boston's assessment data is systematically distorted by the residential exemption — for FY2026, up to $351,108 of assessed value removed for owner-occupants who filed — so any model leaning on assessment records inherits that distortion. Add deeded parking, which is often recorded separately and handled inconsistently, and condo fees and reserve position, which are not public record at all.
When someone gives you a number, ask which comparable sales they used and which ones they excluded and why. Anyone can pull the sales that support a price. The judgment is entirely in the exclusions.
Day 60 to 45: fix the four things that photograph
Boston condo buyers price two things harder than anything else: kitchens and light. Neither requires a renovation.
Cabinet fronts and counters. Not a new kitchen. Fronts, hardware, and a counter change the photographs and the walk-through.
Lighting. Replace dated fixtures, raise bulb temperature and output, and clean every window inside and out. Light is the single most valuable feature in Boston housing stock and the easiest to under-deliver in photos.
Paint, in one neutral, everywhere. Including the ceilings you have been ignoring.
The one thing that scares buyers disproportionately. Anything visibly water-related. A stained ceiling tile costs almost nothing to fix and costs a great deal to leave.
What is usually not worth doing before a sale: full bathroom renovations, new windows in a historic district where approval is required anyway, and flooring replacement unless it is genuinely bad.
Day 45 to 30: the pre-listing inspection nobody does
Underused in this market, and it does two things.
It converts a negotiation into a disclosure. A problem you disclose is a known cost and the discount is usually about the size of the problem. A problem discovered at inspection is evidence there may be more, and the discount is frequently larger.
And it removes your worst surprise from the highest-leverage week of the transaction. For Boston condos, the things it turns up are knob and tube — which is an insurance problem before it is a repair problem, since some carriers will not write a policy on it — old heating equipment, and water intrusion history.
Day 30 to 15: staging, photography, and the decision most sellers get wrong
Photography is not a formality. If your listing looks like every other listing, your property competes on price alone. Floor plan, video where the layout is the story, and photographs shot in good light — not mid-day wide-angle on every wall.
Declutter to the point of discomfort. Boston units are not large and every object reads as less square footage.
Decide your pricing strategy now, not on launch day. The fall market and the current condo market both punish overpricing more than the spring market does. In a deliberate buyer pool, an overpriced listing does not get traffic that an emotional buyer might rescue — it gets skipped. And after thirty days, buyers stop asking what it is worth and start asking what is wrong with it.
Day 15 to 0: paperwork ready before the first showing
Have the full package assembled: master deed, bylaws, budgets, balance sheet, reserve study if one exists, minutes, insurance declarations, and any special assessment history.
Two things happen. You look organized, which affects how a buyer's attorney reads everything else. And a buyer who can review documents immediately can write faster and with fewer contingencies.
For pre-1978 buildings, have your lead documentation ready — sellers and agents must provide the Property Transfer Lead Paint Notification before a purchase and sale is signed, along with any inspection reports or Letters of Compliance. The state updated those forms in April 2026.
The one to start today
Read your last twelve months of board minutes.
It takes an evening, it costs nothing, and it is the only item on this list that can change your decision about whether to sell at all this year. Everything else is preparation. That one is information.
If you are thinking about selling in the next year, send me the address and unit and I will tell you what I would do in what order, and what I think the number is. There is no cost to that conversation and no obligation attached to it.
Chris Remmes, Managing Broker, Remmes & Co. [email protected] | 617-398-0015
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