Extremely active real estate market continues into September and accentuates the shortage of properties for sale in Montreal suburbs - GlobeNewswire | Canada News Media
L’ÎLE-DES-SŒURS, Quebec, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) has just released its most recent residential real estate market statistics for the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), based on the real estate brokers’ Centris provincial database.
In total, 5,147 residential sales transactions were concluded in September 2020. This represents a 42 per cent increase compared to September of last year and a new sales record for a month of September.
Cumulatively since the start of the year, and compared to the same nine-month period in 2019, the real estate market in the Montreal CMA has finally recovered all the transactions lost in early spring due to the COVID-19 confinement measures.
“With an average selling time of only 46 days in the Montreal area, a new record has been broken for a month of September, reflecting extremely tight market conditions in favour of sellers, including for properties that are less desirable in normal times,” said Charles Brant, the QPAREB’s director of market analysis.
Sales by geographic area
Geographically, all six main areas of the Montreal CMA continued to register a very strong increase in sales in September.
The northern periphery took the lead, as the North Shore and Laval registered notable sales increases of 61 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (+49 per cent) and the South Shore (+43 per cent) also showed exceptional sales increases.
Finally, the Island of Montreal continued its slower catch-up with a 28 per cent rise in sales, and thus surpassed Vaudreuil-Soulanges (+22 per cent) this month.
Sales by property category
Across the CMA, single-family homes continued to post the strongest sales growth, as sales of this property category jumped by 47 per cent (2,752 transactions) in September.
Sales of condominiums increased by 39 per cent compared to September of last year (1,905 transactions), while sales of plexes with two to five dwellings grew by 27 per cent (482 transactions).
Prices
New records were set for all three property categories.
The median price of single-family homes across the CMA jumped by 21 per cent compared to September of last year to reach $430,000.
The median price of both condominiums and plexes rose by 10 per cent, reaching $318,000 and $610,000, respectively.
Number of properties for sale
The number of properties for sale continued to contract in September as there were 14,148 active residential listings on the Centris system, down 16 per cent compared to one year earlier.
The last time that the supply of active listings dipped below this number in the Montreal CMA was back in September of 2003.
However, there was a very significant increase in active listings for condominiums on the Island of Montreal (+41 per cent), which is in contrast with the other geographic areas of the Montreal CMA, particularly for the single-family home category.
For September 2020 and year-to-date statistics charts, click here.
About the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers
The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) is a non-profit association that brings together more than 13,000 real estate brokers and agencies. It is responsible for promoting and defending their interests while taking into account the issues facing the profession and the various professional and regional realities of its members. The QPAREB is also an important player in many real estate dossiers, including the implementation of measures that promote homeownership. The Association reports on Quebec’s residential real estate market statistics, provides training, tools and services relating to real estate, and facilitates the collection, dissemination and exchange of information. The QPAREB is headquartered in Quebec City and has its administrative offices in Montreal. It has two subsidiaries: Centris Inc. and the Collège de l’immobilier du Québec. Follow its activities at qpareb.ca or via its social media pages: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
About Centris
Société Centris provides real estate industry stakeholders with access to real estate data and a wide range of technology tools. Centris tools are used by close to 14,000 real estate brokers, as well as other industry professionals. Centris also operates Centris.ca, the most visited real estate website in Quebec.
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Marjolaine Beaulieu Publicist Communications and Marketing
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.