April Sales: Even Higher Mark-ups

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Westmount’s real estate market showed no signs of abating in April this year as the average mark-up over valuation reached 60 percent. The month heralded the highest price so far this year at $7,400,000 for a house on Braeside Place, the highest mark-up of 2022 for a house on Metcalfe Ave. that sold for more than 2½ times its tax value, the lowest average days-on-market at 65 compared to an average of 89 for all of 2021 and more than double that in 2020.

The sales included two over $5 million and two more between $3 and $5 million of a total 15 sales posted so far, up from 12 in March (two more since our last report), but the important signal is that, besides the Metcalfe mark-up, three other houses went for more than 80 percent mark-ups and three more above 50 percent. In March the average mark-up was only 29.6 percent, so the average for April was more than double that.

All this is happening while the Bank of Canada is trying to raise interest rates to slow down the booming national market. It seems likely that the Westmount boom will not slow down until homeowners on their way up the ladder find that they cannot sell their houses for the prices they have come to expect, thus they will not be able to put forward as much equity as they had hoped.

Only three condominiums — all apartments — sold in April for prices ranging from $768,000 to $1,340,000 and an average mark-up of 27.3 percent compared to an average for nine sales in the first quarter of the year at 30.8 percent. Thus we can say that the condo market is not enjoying the same fervour as the single-family market.

Posted by andy Posted in: Monthly Analysis No Comments » April 2022