One ratio compresses a whole negotiation into a single number: what the buyer paid, divided by what the seller asked. Used carefully it is the best quick gauge of pricing power in a market. Used carelessly it rewards pricing tricks.
Sale price ÷ asking price. A home listed at $1,000,000 that sells for $980,000 has a ratio of 98%; sold for $1,030,000, it is 103%. Above 100% means buyers paid more than asked; below means they negotiated down.
Market-wide, the median ratio summarizes who holds the pricing power. Around 100%, sellers are naming prices buyers accept. Meaningfully below, buyers are pushing back. Sustained above, competition is outbidding the ask.
A ratio against the final asking price describes the last round of the negotiation. A ratio against the original asking price — the first price of the home's full listing history — describes the whole journey, including every cut and relisting along the way.
Example: original ask $1,300,000, relisted at $1,180,000, sold $1,200,000. Sale ÷ final ask = 102% — looks like a bidding war. Sale ÷ original ask = 92% — the truer picture of how the market treated the seller's expectation. (More on this in original vs final asking price.)
A market's gap between the two versions is itself a signal: the wider it is, the more repricing is happening beneath the surface.
In some neighbourhoods, agents deliberately list below expected value with a scheduled offer date. Those homes routinely sell at 105–115% of ask — by design. Averaged into a city's ratio, they can make a balanced market look red-hot, and they make “% over asking” useless as a value gauge.
Defenses: prefer medians over averages, prefer original-ask ratios (a list-low home rarely has prior cuts, but a repriced one gets caught), and read the ratio next to market speed — genuinely hot markets are fast and above ask, while list-low pockets can be “over asking” even when slow.
Current medians move every quarter, so they live in the data pages rather than this guide: see where Ontario homes sell above asking for city rankings of both ratio versions, and the negotiating-room report for the below-ask side. Definitions and disclosure floors are in the methodology.
Where Ontario homes sell above asking — live sale-to-list ratios and above-ask rates by city.
Homebuyer negotiating room — the below-ask side: how often and how deep buyers negotiate.
Original vs final asking price — the two denominators, unpacked with examples.
Ontario Market Heat Index — every ratio, by city, property type and period.