June Sales: Narrowing the Gap

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Prices and volume both held up in Westmount’s June real estate market, with 14 reported sales and an adkisted average price just under $1,500,000, where it has been, ±5 percent, since early 2012.

All but one of the 14 house sales was for more than $1 million but only one was for more than $2 million, giving a fairly narrow price range once the highest and lowest prices are removed. In the past six months ten prices have been negotiated at more than $2 million, 23 less than $1 million. Thus with only one sale in each category in June, it seems the gap is gettiong even tighter. The list of available houses is slightly larger now than it had been in February, the beginning of the spring marketing season. Still 40 percent of the asking prices are over $2 million and 20 houses are listed below $1 million, the same number as in February.

Among the June sales, the average markup over valuation was 27 percent, higher than in April or May but lower than last March, for example, or June 2012, so there really has been no significant price movement over the past year. All of last month’s sales were above municipal valuation, with the highest markup (86 percent) belonging to the highest-priced sale of the month ($2,200,000). Two houses sold only 6 percent above valuation. Three houses had been on the market for more than 200 days and the average marketing period was 121 days. The fastest turnaround time was 11 days.

The condominium market was absolutely dead in June, leaving the second-quarter average condo price at $755,799 and, perhaps more significantly, the average markup at 25 percent, only slightly lower than for single-family dwellings. Early in the month two co-op flats sold for an average $563,750.

Agents posted three sales in adjacent-Westmount areas in June, one each in southern Côte des Neiges, eastern Notre Dame de Grâce and the Trafalgar-Daulac area, for prices ranging from $740,000 to $1,060,000. So far this year markups are lower than last year in every region of adjacent-Westmount, but volume is particularly strong in southern Côte des Neiges, where 13 sales have been reported so far compared to 15 in all of last year.

Now, maybe, things will slow down for the summer months and we will all come back refreshed and ready for another busy season in late August. Have a good summer!

Posted by andy Posted in: Monthly Analysis No Comments » June 2013