191 calls · March to June 2026 · mostly British Columbia
How long does it take to get ready for a listing appointment?
We phoned 191 listing agents on live listings this spring and asked one question. 176 picked up. 84 of them gave a number without being asked for one. The median answer was a couple of hours.
The answers, as given
Nobody was surveyed. The question was asked in conversation, in the agent's own words came back, and the phrases below are the ones that came up more than once. The full spread runs from five minutes to a couple of months.
The phrases given more than once, counted from the 84 answers that carried a length. One-off answers ("four to six hours", "hours for sure") and answers that came as a story rather than a figure are quoted, not counted.
"Two, three hours." We said that's what we usually hear. "Minimum."
Cold call, 7 April 2026"If it's a rural property, of course, comps are difficult to find. The quickest it could take is maybe about ten minutes. At the most, I would spend maybe four to five hours."
Cold call, 23 March 2026"Oh my god. Well, it depends on the listing. It's a job for sure. It's a job. Why, are you offering the help?"
Cold call, 31 March 2026"No. It probably takes me long. I'm pretty particular about things. None of the platforms that I'm familiar with pull it together how I want it pulled together, so I do it pretty manually."
Cold call, 9 June 2026The same question on 78 recorded demo calls
A second set of agents, this time on a recorded video call with us, February to July. Seventy described how they prepare. Sixteen put a clock on it. Nine of the sixteen landed in the same band: a couple of hours, two to three, a few. Only two said under ninety minutes, and both called that the fast case.
"It takes me probably an hour. I prep usually the day before so that it's fresh in my head. So about an hour, maybe two hours to prep."
Demo call, 13 March 2026"I'm into it for a couple hours, all said and done, from the phone call to the research. Pulling title, grabbing the documents off the township or the city, if there's any open permits."
Demo call, 13 March 2026"Then I have to go through and do two, three hours worth of labour to get it done, to get the listing."
Demo call, 18 February 2026"An hour and a half going into it and more going out of it, because I don't leave anything with them."
Demo call, 4 March 2026"You absolutely nailed it on the head when you say about four hours. I've gotten that down over a decade. Maybe I got it down to 75 minutes or an hour."
Demo call, 12 February 2026"It's the most hated thing. And then sometimes you don't get the listing and you've just wasted four hours of your life."
Demo call, 25 February 2026Where the hours go
Four reasons came up again and again on the calls. None of them is a shortcut waiting to be taken. They are the job.
Comparables that do not exist
Rural, acreage, a house on a street of condos, the only sale in a year. Twelve agents described a market where the comps have to be hunted rather than pulled.
"There isn't a lot of information out there because there hasn't been a lot of houses that are selling. So instead of going back six months, I'm going back a year."
Cold call, 27 March 2026No two properties prepare the same way
Fifteen agents said some version of "it depends". A mobile home, a single family dwelling and an acreage each get their own approach, and a style of home the agent has not been inside before takes longer.
"It depends on the market. It depends on the buyer or the seller. And it depends on the property. So I don't have any set formula for that."
Cold call, 24 March 2026The documents
Title, the strata package, permits, the tax record. Read, filed, and turned into something a seller can follow.
"I usually get the seller to let me into their portal to get the documents. Upload them into Google Drive, set them into a strata document folder so I can share out. And I usually read all the documents."
Cold call, 31 March 2026Too many tools, and none of them finishes the job
Eight agents named the same thing: the CMA in one system, the presentation in another, the brochure in a third, and the last hour spent making them agree.
"We're stuck behind subscription walls. When you start adding them all up, you've got to pick and choose. It's slightly a little clunky."
Cold call, 9 June 2026The agents who say it takes fifteen minutes
They exist, and they are not wrong. The fastest answers came from agents with a system they have run for years, or an appraiser's background, or a market they know house by house. Speed is not the only measure they use, and several said so.
"My CMAs are now down to fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes."
Cold call, 27 April 2026"I wouldn't want to say it takes x amount of minutes, because that's not accurate considering the generational knowledge I have."
Cold call, 4 June 2026"I don't need to save the time. I need to be very thorough."
Cold call, 15 April 2026What we took from the calls is that the research half of the job, the property record, the comparables, the market figures, is the half a machine can do in minutes. The judgement half is not, and the agents who are fastest are the ones who spend their time there. That split is what ListingBox is built around: one address in, the research assembled and every comparable yours to keep or throw out, and the price decision left where it belongs.
See what a CMA looks likeHow this was gathered. Between 21 March and 12 June 2026 our team phoned 191 agents with an active listing in Canada, mostly British Columbia, and asked how long their preparation for a listing appointment takes. The calls were transcribed by machine; quotes are printed as spoken, with the stutters removed and nothing added. The demo-call figures come from 78 recorded conversations between February and July 2026. Nobody was paid, and no agent is named.