August Sales: Heaving a Sigh

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Summer doldrums in Westmount’s real estate market gave agents a chance to catch their collective breath before what appears to be a busy fall season begins in earnest following the Jewish holiday. Eight sales were reported in August, the same number as in July but still contributing to the slowest annual volume-to-date since 2013 and second-slowest since 1994. And though the “typical” house value dropped slightly from July, it stayed above $2 million for the fourth month in a row. Among one- and two-family dwellings, the last time a sale was posted below $1 million was in May. In fact, so far this year only five Westmount homes have brought prices under $1 million.

Highest price in August was $3,700,000 for a top-of-the-mountain house, the fourth-highest sale price so far this year (though three which were posted as having sold for more than $4 million late in 2017 still have not been registered). Another brought a price in August of $3,270,000, according to records. The average mark-up for the month was 27 percent, about where it has been since May, when the adjusted home value first moved past the $2 million mark. Individual mark-ups ranged from 3 to 72 percent, with only the $3,700,000 sale coming in at less than 10 percent.

Westmount’s condominium market, meanwhile, slowed to a crawl during the summer months. While the second quarter of 2016 (April to June) logged 21 condo sales, only five were announced by agents in July and August. The average mark-up of 25 percent in the second quarter jumped to 44 percent among the five third-quarter sales, but the sample size is too small to consider this a significant statistic.

Things were slow in adjacent-Westmount areas, with two new sales in the Circle Road area and three in the “Golden Square Mile,” but none just to the east or west of the city limits. Already the Côte des Neiges sector (Circle Road, Cedar Crescent) is running ahead of the total volume for all of 2017, with the fall season still to come.

News about $4 million-plus sale prices earlier this year appears to have opened the floodgates, with 97 listings on the market in mid-September, compared to only 79 a month earlier. Still only two houses asking less than $1 million were in that list, while three were asking more than $10 million, 14 others between $5 million and $10 million. So far this year 36 houses have been rented for amounts between $2,000 and $9,000 per month; another 21 are being offered for rent, including five asking more than $10,000 per month.

Posted by andy August 2018

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