What Two Divorces Taught Me About Selling a Home

Quick answer

Amy Flowers has been divorced twice and sold the matrimonial home both times, and both times she hired a separate agent to represent the sale rather than acting for herself. The lessons below are hers, in her own words, and they shape how the Flowers Team runs a divorce sale in Milton today.

Emotion and negotiation do not mix. A third party who is not tied to the outcome protects your result.

The decision to sell is usually driven by the fear of carrying the house alone rather than by the math.

Selling during the separation shares the gain or the loss. Keeping the house puts 100% of both on the person who stays.

The wait between the firm offer and the closing date is the hardest part, and nobody warns you it is coming.

Organizing what you own is a legitimate way to cope, and it makes the division feel fair to both people.

Most of what we know about selling a home during a separation came from running these sales. Some of it came from living one. The section below is Amy’s own account, written in the first person and kept that way deliberately.

From Amy

I have been divorced twice, and I sold the matrimonial home both times. Both times, even though I am a licensed agent, I hired someone else to represent the sale, because emotions and negotiation do not mix and I wanted a third party working in my best interest. I know what the stretch between a firm offer and closing day feels like when you are both still in the house. I trained as a divorce coach for the same reason I do this work: I have sat on your side of the table.

Here is what those two experiences actually taught me.

Hire someone who is not you, and not emotionally tied to it

The first thing I did, both times, was hire an agent.

That surprises people. I had been selling houses in Milton for years by then and I could have listed my own home in an afternoon. I did not, and I would not now. When you are in it, you cannot see the offer clearly. You read a low offer as a personal verdict. You read a delay as somebody else winning. Negotiation asks you to be patient and unbothered on exactly the days you are neither.

What I wanted was somebody at that table whose judgment was not tangled up in how I was feeling that week. That is the whole argument for choosing a real estate agent during a divorce, and it applies far more to a professional who thinks she can handle it than to anyone else.

Organizing is not a strange way to cope, and it makes things feel fair

Going through the first one, in my late twenties, I coped by making a list.

I catalogued the house. Every item, what it had cost, the year it arrived, a rough depreciation, and a number at the end of each line. People raise an eyebrow when I say that out loud. It occupied a mind that had nothing useful to do at two in the morning, and it meant that when we came to divide things, neither of us was arguing from memory.

I would tell anyone to do it. It gives you something constructive to do with a week you cannot otherwise get through, and it gives both people the same sheet to argue from instead of two different memories. Your lawyer confirms how it feeds into the way property is divided in an Ontario divorce, but the sheet itself is just organization, and organization is in short supply during a separation.

The fear of carrying it alone is what actually decides the sale

The second time, we had built a custom home and we sold it for less than it cost us.

A slice of that was the market. A slice was simply that we had not owned it long enough for anything to grow. The rest was fear. I did not think I could carry that mortgage by myself, and being suddenly responsible for a payment built around two incomes frightens almost everyone it happens to. With some distance, I think I could have carried it, and the loss would have been smaller if I had.

That is why we sit down and go through the real number with clients before anybody decides anything. Not the mortgage payment. The whole cost of running the house on one income, including the property tax, the insurance, the utilities, the maintenance and whatever support is being paid or received. Most people underestimate that figure badly when they go from two incomes to one, and a decision this size should be made against the true number rather than against a fear.

Selling during the separation shared the loss. Keeping it would not have.

Selling while we were still working through the separation meant the loss landed on both of us rather than on one.

That is the part I would want anyone to understand before they choose. Sell during the separation and the market’s answer, gain or loss, is shared under your agreement. Keep the house and whoever stays owns 100% of the outcome, in both directions, from that day on. Prices in Milton have generally climbed over the years, which has kept that risk modest, and it is still real, and it bites hardest in a market that is not rising.

Neither answer is automatically right. Mine was the right one emotionally even though it was not the right one financially, and I would make it again. A clean break was worth what it cost me. Just make that trade knowingly rather than by accident.

Nobody warns you about the stretch between the firm offer and closing

The house sold quickly. The hard part came afterward.

There was a firm offer, there was a date on the calendar, and the two of us were still sharing a kitchen with nothing left to decide. No arguments. It was still among the hardest weeks I have had, and not one person had thought to tell me it was coming.

That is why we now tell clients about it up front, before the sign goes up. It changes nothing physically and it changes a great deal emotionally, because a bad stretch you were warned about and know the end of is a completely different thing from one that ambushes you. It is also why we keep closings as short as the deal allows on a separation file, and why we build the timeline around who is living in the house rather than around what suits a buyer.

What I would tell you if you called me tomorrow

• Hire somebody who is not emotionally tied to the outcome, even if you think you can do it yourself.
• Get the real carrying cost on one income before you decide anything, not just the mortgage payment.
• Make the sell or keep decision knowing exactly who carries the risk afterward.
• Expect the stretch between the firm offer and closing to be the worst of it, and keep that closing short.
• Organize what you can. It will not fix anything and it will get you through the week.

Amy Flowers, Broker, CEO and Team Leader, Flowers Team Real Estate

Why this shows up in how we work

Several members of our team of 16+ specialists have been through divorce themselves. We come from a place of experience with this, professionally and personally, and it is the reason we set expectations early, run the numbers before the decision, and keep every fact about the house moving to both parties at the same time.

Talk to us in confidence

If you are separating and the house is part of the decision, the first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We will prepare the free home evaluation we do for every seller so you know what the home is worth in today’s Milton market, what it costs to carry on one income, and what your options actually are. Call the Flowers Team at 905-878-6232 or reach us at flowersteam.ca.

We understand that divorce is a sensitive and confidential matter. To respect your privacy, we will not initiate phone calls unless we have received your explicit written consent.

Frequently Asked Questions, Built From Real Search Queries

Sources

Flowers Team internal records, January 2024 to September 2026, divorce transaction counts and share of business

Amy Flowers, first-hand account, recorded September 2026

Not intended to solicit properties currently under contract.