December Sales: Rounding the Bend

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The Westmount real estate market appears to be rounding the bend, to the delight of optimistic homeowners who might be willing to wait a month or two before putting their house on the market. The typical pattern of local real estate prices is to show some hesitation in the end-of-year period, generally between November and February. This may be moved forward or backward by other economic and political forces or — in 2020 — the initial crash caused by the pandemic and new rules for showing houses.

Five houses sold in Westmount in December, rounding out the year with 114 sales, the lowest volume for any year since 1994, just before the second provincial referendum. This time, though politics (Bills 21 and 96) may be playing a part in the decline, more of it can be explained by the climbing interest rates and something of a post-pandemic return to the office, which is making Westmount’s large houses slightly less important than they had been, say, a year ago.

December included one $4,100,000 sale and three of the four other sales brought less than $2 million each, for an average $2,301,900, but in fact the average mark-up over valuation climbed to 42.2 percent, up from 32.5 percent in November, which allowed for the adjusted average to climb slightly. Latecomers were added to the October and November sales lists, changing those numbers slightly (October still has the distinction of posting no sale under $2 million) but indicating there had been relatively little market movement through the late autumn months.

Various clients took their houses off the market over the holidays and have yet to re-list them, so there are only 83 houses on the market in mid-January compared to 99 listed a month earlier. One house now is listed under $1 million, the first since one was briefly put on the market in September and then taken off without a sale. No houses sold in 2022 for less than $1 million; in fact the last time a price was posted below $1 million was jn January, 2021.

Volume remained strong in Westmount’s condominium market in the last quarter of 2022, when nine sales were posted (four of those in December), indicating an average price of $878,167 and an average mark-up over valuation of 18.5 percent. The raw average sale price is the first time since the first quarter of 2020 that the average is less than $1 million; only two of the sales in the fourth quarter were for prices over $1 milion, and one other was a bachelor apartment which sold for only $280,000, whereas the entire year’s next-lowest sale price was $657,000. All of the condos sold in the fourth quarter were in apartment buildings, none were converted duplexes or triplexes.

House rental listings dropped from 33 to 27, though three new rental contracts were negotiated in December, an indication that market might be picking up steam early in the year. Among house rentals, the range for 2022 was between $3,210 and $14,000 per month, and those now on the market are asking between $4,200 and $15,000 per month.

Posted by andy December 2022

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