By Simon Royer, REALTOR® at RE/MAX Icon Realty

I hear the same thing all the time from buyers before we've even started looking: "I'm not going to compete in their games. If they're holding offers, I don't even want to offer." And I get it. Nobody wants to submit into a blind bidding war, hear back "there were multiple offers, yours wasn't the one," with no number, no price, no idea how close they actually were, and feel like the whole thing was rigged from the start.

Here's the part that surprises most buyers: Ontario did change the rules around holding offers back in December 2023. Most people just never heard what actually changed, and more importantly, what didn't.

Offer Night Hasn't Gone Away, It Just Changed a Little

There's a common belief that Ontario "banned blind bidding." It didn't. What actually happened is that sellers gained the option to allow more transparency around competing offers, if they choose to. Whether your offer night looks any different than it did five years ago is still entirely up to the seller, not the rules.

That's the part that trips people up, and honestly, it's the part that fuels most of the frustration. The reform sounded like a fix. In practice, it's a choice most sellers still don't make. In my own career, I've genuinely never once been part of an open bidding process. Not as the listing agent, not as the buyer's agent, not once.

What Buyers Are Actually Entitled to Know Now

One thing applies on every single offer night regardless of what the seller decides: the number of competing written offers must be disclosed to everyone who submitted one. Not verbal interest, not "we're expecting another one," an actual written offer that's been received. Beyond that, a seller can choose to share more, price, closing date, conditions, but it's their call, not a requirement, and buyer identity is never shared either way.

Why Buyers Are Still Fed Up, and Honestly, I Understand It

Since sharing more details is the seller's choice and not a requirement, most sellers stick with the traditional approach, because it's the one most likely to drive the price up. That's not a conspiracy, it's just an incentive. It also means the frustration buyers feel isn't imaginary or overblown. The system genuinely didn't change as much as the headlines made it sound like it would. Honestly, I understand why sellers stick with the traditional route. Sharing more usually isn't in their best interest, since it can just as easily tip off other buyers on how to beat a strong offer as it can push anyone to improve theirs.

There's another layer to this too, and it's worth being honest about. With as much inventory as we have on the market right now, holding offers has increasingly become a tool to manufacture urgency, not just a reflection of real scarcity. Setting an offer date creates a sense of FOMO that keeps a buyer locked onto one property, when in reality there might be four or five comparable homes down the street that never got that same artificial deadline treatment. It's not always a sign a home is truly in high demand. Sometimes it's just a strategy to keep you from shopping around.

The listed price plays into this too. I tell my own clients this often: in a holding offer strategy, the list price is usually just marketing, a number designed to get as many people through the door as possible, not necessarily what the seller actually expects or needs to walk away with. A home priced noticeably below what similar homes have sold for isn't always a deal. Often it's bait to generate enough traffic and enough offers that the price gets bid right back up to, or past, real market value.

Here's something else worth being honest about. Not every underpriced listing is a calculated strategy. Sometimes it's an agent who genuinely doesn't know how to properly price a home, so they list it low and just see where it lands, letting the market do the work they should have done with a real comparative analysis. COVID made that easy to get away with. For a while, you could put a sign on a lawn and the house would sell no matter what, so a lot of agents never had to develop the skill of pricing a home properly. That habit doesn't just disappear because the market did.

What I tell my buyer clients is this: you can't control whether a seller shares more information. You can control how well-prepared your own offer is, and that's where most of the real leverage actually lives.

The COVID Frenzy, and Why It Still Gives Me a Bit of PTSD

This isn't new. During the COVID market, which I'd honestly just call a full-blown frenzy, I'd constantly hear buyers and even other agents throw out advice like "just go $150,000 over asking," as if that flat number was a strategy on its own. Listing agents caught on fast, and a lot of them started pricing homes low on purpose, almost counting on buyers showing up ready to pile huge round numbers on top without doing the real math on what the home was actually worth. That habit didn't disappear when the market cooled, it just got quieter.

I hope I never see a market like that again. It wasn't good for anyone in the long run. People are still paying the price today for decisions made in the middle of that frenzy, mortgages sized around numbers that made sense in the heat of a bidding war and a lot less sense once things settled back down.

I'll be honest, I still get a bit of PTSD when I walk into an offer presentation on a listing that's priced way under market, set up specifically to attract a flood of offers. It takes me right back to open houses during that stretch where we'd have 75 groups through in a single day and 35 offers on the table by offer night. That's not a normal, healthy market. That's a frenzy, and I hope we never see it at that scale again.

To be clear, I'm not against the holding offer strategy itself. There's a time and a place for it, and used well, it's a legitimate way to run a fair, organized process. Heck, I've sold my own home this way. It's the abuse of it, the manufactured urgency, the lowballed pricing, the games, that I have a problem with.

It Doesn't Always Work, Especially When Pricing Gets It Wrong

I want to be fair here too. Holding offers isn't purely a manipulation tactic. It genuinely helps keep a busy listing organized, one clear date and time instead of offers trickling in at random and forcing a seller to make snap decisions. There's real value in that for everyone involved.

But it only works if the pricing is right. If a home is priced too high, or if buyers get the sense that the seller is expecting a certain amount over asking to even be considered, the strategy can backfire completely. Buyers who feel priced out of contention before they even start often just don't show up on offer night at all. I've seen listings with a set offer date come and go with one offer, or none, because the price signaled expectations nobody wanted to chase.

But I'll say this plainly, because I hear it directly from buyers all the time: a lot of them are sick of the games. They don't want to compete, they don't want to guess, and they don't want to feel manufactured into a bidding war for a house they were genuinely just trying to buy.

Even so, I always tell my buyer clients to put themselves in the seller's shoes for a second. If I were the one selling their property, I'd want to get every dollar I could for them too. That's not a knock on sellers or their agents for running a smart process. It just means going in clear-eyed, understanding what's actually happening on the other side of the table, instead of assuming it's personal.

Offer Night Strategies That Actually Help

Get a real pre-approval, not an estimate, before you ever walk into a bidding situation. Knowing your actual number, not a rough guess, is what keeps you from panicking and overpaying in the moment.

Understand what a "bully" or pre-emptive offer is before you're in one. Sometimes a seller sets an offer date next week, but a strong offer comes in early with a short deadline attached. The seller doesn't have to accept it, but it happens more than people expect, and it can upend an offer date you were counting on.

Be honest with yourself about waiving conditions. Financing and inspection conditions exist to protect you. Waiving them can make an offer more competitive, but it also means you're absorbing real risk if something goes wrong. This is a conversation to have with your agent before offer night, not during it.

Know the actual comparable sold prices before you get attached to the list price. If a home is priced well below what similar homes nearby have sold for, that's usually a sign it was priced to attract a crowd, not a sign you've found an underpriced gem.

If you genuinely don't want to compete in those games, that's a fair call, and you have an option. Keep an eye on the property and simply wait. A surprising number of homes with a set offer date don't actually sell that night, priced too high, expectations too far off, or the flood of offers everyone assumed would show up just didn't. If that happens, you can often come in after with a normal offer and no competition at all.

Don't fall in love with one house. The buyers who handle offer night the best going in are the ones who have a second and third option they'd genuinely be happy with. It changes how you negotiate when losing one house doesn't feel like losing everything.

Work with someone who will actually tell you when to walk away. My job on offer night isn't to help you win at any cost. It's to help you make a decision you won't regret in six months. In a competing offer situation, I would genuinely rather lose the house than watch you win it and regret it down the road. I'd rather have happy clients than worry about my own commission, and I mean that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Ontario ban blind bidding? No. Sellers were given the option to allow more transparency around competing offers, but it's entirely their choice. Most offer nights still run the traditional way.

What am I entitled to know if I submit an offer? At minimum, the number of competing written offers. If the seller has directed their brokerage to share more, like price or closing date, that information goes to every offer-maker equally, never just to one buyer.

What is a bully offer? A pre-emptive offer submitted before the seller's stated offer date, usually with a short deadline, meant to pressure the seller into deciding early instead of waiting to compare it against others.

Should I waive my financing or inspection conditions to compete? Only if you fully understand and accept the risk that comes with it. It can make an offer stronger, but it removes protections that exist for a reason. Talk it through with your agent before you're in the moment, not during it.

Why is this house priced so far below what similar homes sold for? In most holding offer situations, that's a marketing decision, not a discount. Pricing low is a common way to generate as much traffic and as many offers as possible, with the expectation that competition brings the price back up to, or past, real market value.

Is offer night different in Brantford, Cambridge, or Kitchener-Waterloo than in Toronto? The rules are the same across Ontario, but how competitive it gets depends on the specific property and neighbourhood. Some streets and price points around here still see multiple offers, others don't.

Simon's Final Word

Buyers are right to be frustrated, and I'm not going to pretend the 2023 changes fixed as much as people hoped. What I can do is make sure you're never walking into an offer night guessing. Know your number, know your risk tolerance, and have someone in your corner who'll tell you the truth about a house, even when the truth is "let this one go."

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This blog post reflects the personal opinions and professional experience of Simon Royer, REALTOR® at RE/MAX Icon Realty. Not intended to solicit buyers or sellers currently under contract. RE/MAX Icon Realty Brokerage, 33-620 Davenport Rd, Waterloo ON N2V 2C2