June Sales: Red Hot Market

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Westmount’s red-hot real estate market reached new heights in June with an even dozen sales keeping the value of Westmount’s “typical” house — theoretically evaluated at $1,575,722 — over $2 million. The market was getting almost frantic in late spring: the lowest June price was $1,320,000, and mark-ups over municipal assessment ranged from 18 to 79 percent with an average of almost 43 percent, some 20 points higher than in May. Average time on the market dropped to 51 days from 67 in May and 103 in April; four houses sold at or above their asking price and four were double-ended, that is, the listing agent provided his or her own buyer.

The very slow volume in the beginning of the year means that only 74 sales were posted in the first six months this year, the lowest volume for that time period since 1994, in the middle of Westmount’s longest real-estate slump. This time, as we explained last month, the problem is inventory, which dropped from 96 in mid-June to 85 in mid-July, though this is up from 60 in mid-February. It is perhaps noteworthy that one Westmount house came on asking $27,000,000 in June, topping the $26,500,000 asking price for one more which was listed in May.

The condominium market picked up, too, with 19 sales posted in the second quarter of 2018, up from 12 sales in the first quarter. Highest price was $2,850,000 for a luxury apartment at 1 Wood Ave., while the lowest involved a small apartment at 399 Clarke Ave., $279,000. The average of the 19 sales was $972,079, with seven sales over $1 million, and an average mark-up of 23.7 percent that would put the value of the average condo in Westmount over the $1 million mark, for the first time in history.

For adjacent-Westmount, three more sales in the Côte-des-Neiges district (between Westmount and Queen Mary Road) mean there have now been as many one- and two-family sales in that district as there were in all of last year (21), including three duplexes each on Victoria and Grosvenor Aves. The same 21 have been sold in eastern Notre Dame de Grâce, compared to 25 in all of 2017. Far fewer, comparatively, have been sold this year in either the Trafalgar/Daulac area or “Golden Square Mile,” only one in Shaughnessy Village.

Posted by andy Posted in: Monthly Analysis No Comments » June 2018

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