Montreal’s record August home sales get boost from condos
The Greater Montreal Real Estate Board says booming condo sales drove an 8-per-cent increase in residential sales.

TheStar.com
Sept. 7, 2017
Ross Marowits

Montreal’s hot real estate market continued to sizzle last month with record August sales and rising prices.

The Greater Montreal Real Estate Board says booming condo sales drove an 8-per-cent increase in residential sales across the Montreal region.

There were 2,899 sales, with condo transactions surging 19 per cent. Single-family homes that account for more than half of sales rose 4 per cent.

The Island of Montreal led the way with a 12-per-cent rise in sales.

Paul Cardinal of the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards attributed the continued gains to strong job creation, consumer confidence and foreign migration.

He also said buyers were fast-tracking purchases to beat an expected interest-rate hike, which was announced Wednesday.

Sales have increased each of the last 30 months, except July 2016, when they were unchanged. The last monthly drop in sales took place in February 2015.

That’s far different than in Toronto, where sales of detached, semi-detached, condos and townhouses fell between 25.7 and 41.6 per cent in August.

The average sales price in the Greater Toronto Area dropped for a fourth-straight month, falling 1.8 per cent to $732,292.

In Greater Vancouver, home sales surged 22.3 per cent while the composite benchmark price was up 9.4 per cent to $1,029,700.

Both Toronto and Vancouver have implemented a 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers in attempt to quell rising home prices.

Montreal remains a relative bargain even though the average real estate price increased 4.1 per cent to $374,333 in August.

One possible area of weakness was a slowdown in the purchase of homes over $500,000. They grew 14 per cent, down from 57 per cent in July.