June Sales: Serious Mark-downs

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Some serious mark-downs from city valuation plagued the short list of sales for June, as vendors resigned themselves to asking far lower prices than they would have a year ago, and even at that, they could have been in for a long wait to get their houses sold. Agents have only posted five Westmount single-family sales so far for June, and though we expect more sales announcements to come, three of the five sold for mark-downs between 22 and 42 percent, the other two were mark-ups between seven and 10 percent, thus the monthly average ratio was -20 percent, and what looked like a bend in the sales curve has become something of a freefall.

It wasn’t just the averages: the first sale since March for less than $1 million was $875,000 in June for a house with a valuation of $1,499,400. The highest-priced sale of the month, in upper Westmount, went for $4,400,000 after coming on the market in 2022 asking $6,750,000 and eventually dropping to $4,995,000. The municipal valuation was $5,675,000, thus a 22.5 percent mark-down.

The condominium market was only slightly stronger, with the average price of 11 sales in the second quarter of 2024 (April-June) at $1,022,000 and the “typical” condo, with an average valuation of $1,266,718, having a market value of $1,316,743 — only a 3.9 percent increase.

There was little activity in adjacent-Westmount, either, with just three house sales, two just east of Westmount on Cedar Ave. and de Ramezay St., and another Roslyn Ave. house sale to the north of the city limits, where four Roslyn sales this year have added to 10 sales last year, making up almost half of all the house sales in the Côte des Neiges district south of Queen Mary Road.

Available listings have dropped from 136 in mid-June to 134 in early July, with little change in the price distribution. The only surprise in terms of rentals was a contract for an upper-Westmount mansion quoting $25,000 a month. At last report some 29 houses have been rented so far this year, compared to 28 last year, but in 2022 there were only 33 rentals in the entire year, so this option appears to be increasing in popularity.

Posted by andy Posted in: Monthly Analysis No Comments » June 2024