November Sales: Volume Remains Strong

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Westmount kept up a good pace of sales in November, as 12 more sales were negotiated during the month, all for prices above $1,275,000 and with five of the 12 over $2 million. In fact, the average adjusted price for the “typical” Westmount house has stood above $2.1 million for the third month in a row. The $1.25 million lowest price was negotiated for a townhouse on Somerville Ave.; top price was $3,700,000 for a mid-level detached house. A late-October sale was also posted at $6,400,000, the highest price so far this year, which helped pull up the average price in October to $2,154,462, higher than the November average of $2,104,400.

One top-of-the-mountain sale in November went for well over double its municipal evaluation and only two sales were posted for less than 10 percent mark-ups. The average mark-up in November was 30.6 percent, down from 43 percent in October but still above the average for the year which is 28,5 percent. The dozen sales in November is just about average for that month, but comes in a year which had very slow volume: only 137 sales compared to an average 161 sales through November. Year-to-date tallies are higher than they were in 2013, but otherwise this is the lowest volume since 1994, just before the second sovereignty referendum.

The November sales also include four houses listed for less than two weeks, three of which sold at or above the asking price, so we might say Westmount continues to be a seller’s market; one agent told us he was considering ten offers on one property, four days after it was listed! The average days-on-market was 100 days, down from 160 days in October, but the average includes one house which had been listed for 21 months and two others more than 10 months.

The fervour in the one- and two-family market did not necessarily transfer to the condominium market, where another three sales in November brought the number for the fourth quarter of 2018 to six. With December still to come, only 12 condo sales were posted in the second half of 2018, compared to 25 in the second half of 2016 and 20 in 2017. The average mark-up for condos in the fourth quarter was only 18.2 percent, the lowest average for a quarter this year, though the year’s average of 24.9 percent is up 18 percent from the average mark-up in 2017.

Sales of adjacent-Westmount houses also bottomed out, with only two sales in the Côte des Neiges area just north of the city limits and one more on de Breslay Road just east of Westmount. For the various areas of adjacent-Westmount prices are up between 25 and 33 percent, year over year.

The coming holiday season means the market will slow down, though there are still 85 houses for sale in Westmount, down from 100 a month ago. Exactly one is asking less than $1 million — at $959,000 — while three are seeking more than $10 million. Another 23 houses in Westmount are up for rent, five of them asking more than $10,000 per month, but the highest rental negotiated by agents so far this year is $9,000 a month.

So take some time off, catch your breath and get ready for a wild seller’s market starting next year. Happy holidays to all!

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