Expect demand to surge when international travel opens up again.
Author of the article:
Briana Doyle • Special to the Montreal Gazette
Sales of luxury homes in Montreal increased 134 per cent year-over-year from January to June. But homes on the market are getting fewer visits, according to the annual Engel & Völkers Mid-Year Canadian Luxury Real Estate Market Report.Photo by Pierre Obendrauf /Montreal Gazette files
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It looks like the real estate buying frenzy may finally be starting to calm down a little. While homes in Montreal are still selling much more quickly than they used to in pre-COVID days — in June more than twice as fast, on average, compared to last year — real estate brokers, especially those outside of the city, say they are not seeing the same intensity of competition among buyers as they did a few months ago. The pace of growth in sales and prices also seems to be slowing down.
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It’s not just Montreal. The annual Engel & Völkers Mid-Year Canadian Luxury Real Estate Market Report, released late last month, described a “wave of market normalization” in major cities across the country following an unprecedented growth in sales over $1 million in the first half of the year.
Sales of luxury homes in Montreal increased 134 per cent year-over-year from January to June. Yet in May and June, new listings in Montreal were getting fewer visits and offers than earlier in the year, the report noted. While bidding wars were still fairly common, the competition was more likely to be among just a few buyers, not dozens.
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According to real estate broker Patrice Groleau of Engel & Völkers Montreal, competition for properties in the outer suburbs appears to be decreasing as more homes come on the market, but he said demand for high-end properties in the city remains strong because there is so little supply.
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Patrice Groleau, owner of real-estate agency McGill Immobilier.Photo by Pierre Obendrauf /Montreal Gazette files
“It’s going to be a soft landing for the entry-level real estate,” Groleau said. “The luxury segment still has a lot of momentum going on.”
While the pandemic spurred many Montrealers to make drastic lifestyle changes such as moving from the city to a bigger home in the country or buying a second home in cottage country, with vaccination rates rising and reopening well underway, Groleau said it’s becoming trendy again to buy a place in the city.
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“People took permanent decisions in a temporary situation,” Groleau said. “It was easier to go out (of the city) but coming back in is going to be harder.”
In the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers’ most recent quarterly market update, analysts pointed to the same trend and noted that the price acceleration seen in the past year in Montreal is not sustainable long-term.
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Director of Market Analysis Charles Brant said that affordability issues due to mortgage rate increases, market-calming measures implemented by governments, and changing spending habits as the COVID crisis eases are likely to result in a decline in sales levels by the end of the year.
“Even though records were still being set in the second quarter of 2021, the pace of sales growth has slowed,” Brant said.
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The reprieve may only be temporary, however, thanks to pent-up demand for Canadian real estate from international buyers shut out of the market due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Because international borders have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, the Engel & Völkers report predicts that when international travel resumes, there will be a new surge in interest from foreign buyers looking at Canada’s metropolitan areas — particularly in Vancouver and Montreal. With a relatively low supply of luxury properties available in both cities, a new wave of international buyers could “significantly strain the market,” the brokerage’s report noted.
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It is Montreal that is pegged to be Canada’s next investor favourite. Prices are still much lower than Vancouver and Toronto, and the city is also on the cusp of a boom in development, the report notes, with an estimated 60,000 new construction projects expected to enter the market over the next three years.
While some international buyers are purchasing vacation homes or properties they can rent out, most in Montreal are buying a home to live in, whether for themselves or their adult children, Groleau said. Even if they do not intend to remain in Canada permanently, because Canadian homeowners do not pay capital gains tax when they sell their primary residence, real estate is a practical investment for those who can afford it.
“If you have money and you’ve come here, you’re comparing the price tag to London, to Paris, and so on. (Montreal) is still way more affordable than most major cities around the world,” Groleau said.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
