Earlier this year, many were predicting that housing prices would dip in response to the economic uncertainty created by the pandemic. However, the Montreal market has proved resilient, with housing prices on and off the island steadily increasing.
Georges Gaucher, general manager of Royal Lepage Village, explained that for many, the restrictions imposed by the pandemic “pushed people’s boundaries” and incited a desire for more space.
“Imagine a young couple in their 20s, both working from home. They live in a 700 quare-foot condo in Griffintown. If you live alone in 700 square feet, sometimes you go out of your mind. Imagine being two,” he said.
He said the year started off strong, with an extremely busy sales season right after Christmas.
“We’ve never seen so much activity in the first 10 weeks of the year,” said Gaucher.
But then confinement put a stop to home visits and realtors were stuck trying to navigate alternative ways of doing business, including virtual visits and the use of drones to gather property video.
But following the height of the first wave, Gaucher said that people were eager to upsize, leaving the city for suburbs where they could continue to work from home or even investing in cottage properties.
“Brokers in the Laurentians had listing for one, two, three years sometimes and suddenly all that inventory was sold.” “It was like a rubber band. You stretch and stretch until it snaps.”
Gaucher explained that since demand was so high, the limited supply of houses going on the market drove up prices in the Greater Montreal Area.
However, the demand for suburban housing doesn’t mean the downtown core is being devalued.
“The downtown core is always the last one to be hit and the first one to recoup, historically,” said Gaucher.
Despite price increases, he said Montreal is still more affordable than cities like Toronto and Vancouver where housing has become increasingly unattainable for many.
Looking ahead to 2021
While the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is predicting that prices nationwide will decline in 2021, and some of the country’s biggest banks foresee more muted growth, the Royal Lepage forecast is more optimistic, predicting a six per cent increase in prices in 2021.
“We will probably come out of this confinement with some pent-up demand again,” Gaucher said.
The company’s forecast for 2021 expects the median price of a standard two-storey home in the Montreal area to be $656,200. The median price of a condo is forecast to be $382,600.
The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers reported a “record-setting sales” year for 2020, with a projected 110,000 transactions.
Looking ahead, Charles Brant, director of the the association’s market analysis department, is cautiously optimistic as well.
“After phenomenal sales in 2020, we will return to a more normal sales level, with market conditions that are still favourable to sellers,” he said in a news release.
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.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.
The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.
The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.
The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.
QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.
Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
