Timing is the part people get wrong. If you have a deadline, a retirement date, a possession date on a smaller place or an estate to settle, ask two to three weeks before you want a sign in the ground. That leaves room to fix the two or three things that actually move a price and to price against sales that are still current rather than stale.
Have a few things ready and the report gets sharper. The year the furnace, shingles, windows and hot water tank went in, any permit numbers from the City of Saskatoon, your title particulars from Information Services Corporation, and for a condominium the estoppel certificate and reserve fund study under The Condominium Property Act, 1993. Guessed dates get discounted by buyers. Documented ones do not.
You also get the arithmetic, not just a number. Seller closing costs generally run 4 to 6 percent of the sale price once commission, legal fees of $800 to $1,500 and adjustments are counted, so the report works back to what lands in your account. The reason Joel reviews it by hand is that automated valuations read only what was recorded, and a renovation done without a permit was never recorded at all.