December Sales: Back to the Peak

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The value of the “typical” Westmount house skipped past the $2.4 million mark on its way to a full recovery from the COVID-19 slump and heading for new heights, along with the market elsewhere in the Montreal area.

December sales were somewhat tame in comparison to other recent months which boasted sales of $5 million, $7 million and even $11 million; individual prices in December ranged from $1,475,000 to $2,650,000, but the average mark-up over valuation was 35.2 percent, the highest monthly average this year. Nothing in Westmount has sold below $1 million since August, when a small house on Abbott Ave. sold for $889,000, one of only four houses to sell last year below the $1 million mark. Of seven sales in December, one sold just under municipal valuation while another went for more than double its 2020 tax value.

While we still expect some late postings for December, it is fair to say that the year was influenced heavily by the pandemic: only three Westmount sales were posted in April, which is normally one of the busiest months of the year, but then agents recorded 17 and 20 sales in August and September, respectively, when normally only 11 or 12 sales (per month) are posted. The tally right now says there were 133 sales last year, compared to 138 the year before. There were 136 sales in 2013 and a paltry 97 in 1994 (leading up to the second provincial referendum) but all of the other annual totals were much higher.

Westmount’s condominium market hit a stall in December, with no condo resales posted by local agents, though there was one more purchase of a condo now under construction at 1111 Atwater Ave., where the Montreal Children’s Hospital used to be. The fourth quarter of 2020 tallied seven condo (re)sales while the average for the previous four years was 12.5 sales. Still, the average adjusted price of condos in 2020 was $1,268,300, up 16 percent from 2019, even though volume dropped from 57 in 2019 to only 33 in 2020. So even if fewer buyers are looking for condos these days, they still are willing to pay handsomely for them.

Volume was down in every section of adjacent-Westmount last year, especially eastern Notre Dame de Grâce where 21 sales were posted compared to 37 in 2019. Though the respective samples are quite small, in general it is fair to say that prices were up compared to the previous year.

With the holiday season upon us, the number of available house listings in Westmount plummeted from 78 in mid-December to 51 in mid-January, especially houses priced between $1 and $2 million whose number dropped from 57 to 38. No new house rentals were reported in December; for the year there were 41 houses rented for anywhere from $2,864 to $20,000 per month, down slightly from the 43 houses rented in 2019.

Bonus Graph: Monthly volume

Posted by andy Posted in: Monthly Analysis No Comments » December 2020