March Sales: Late Start to Spring

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A very low supply of houses has led to a record low number of sales in the first three months this year, but the supply appears to be picking up as we move into April and might mean a very late spring market in 2018.

Only eight single-family home sales were posted by agents in March, and though the tally for February has increased to 16, only 28 sales were recorded in the first three months, the lowest volume for those months since we began keeping monthly sales records in 1986. Perhaps more important, of the eight sales in March, the lowest price was $1,475,000 for a townhouse on Metcalfe Ave. and the highest price was $2,700,000 for a semi-detached house mid-level. The “typical” Westmount house is now worth more than $1,900,000 and pushing $1,950,000 in the past two months.

By mid-April the number of listings in Westmount increased from 69 in March to 81, only four of which involved asking prices below $1 million, though in fact only one such listing was available in March. The top asking price has leapt to $13,500,000 for 9 Braeside Place, as advertised in the March 27 Westmount Independent, leading a list of 19 houses asking more than $4 million, up from 17 in mid-March. All of the sales reported in March had prices higher than municipal evaluation, the highest for a small house in Victoria Village which sold for more than 2 1/2 times its tax value.

Six condominium sales were reported in March, bringing to 12 the number of sales in the first quarter of 2018, with an average price of $706,221, an average which has been dropping steadily since the second quarter of 2017, but the average mark-up over valuation has climbed to 19.4 percent, its highest level since the new valuation roll was published last year. Top price in March (and for the quarter) involved a $1,575,000 resale at 1250 Greene Ave., while an apartment at 4855 de Maisonneuve Blvd., corner Victoria Ave., sold for only $325,000, the lowest price. Only one of the condo sales involved a duplex-type condo, and one other a condo-townhouse on St. Catherine St. in front of the old Westmount train station, which went for more than $1 million.

In March we added 19 more sales to the adjacent-Westmount mix, including four sales on Northcliffe Ave. in eastern Notre Dame de Grâce, where the average price is closing in on $1.2 million this year. Almost all of the adjacent-Westmount districts show average prices for one- and two-family homes over $1 million, and in fact in the western Ville Marie sector the average is $1,902,500, almost the same as for Westmount proper, but including one mansion which sold for more than $4 million.

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