Montreal Property Continues to Heat Up

Montreal property continues to heat up as the city takes over from Vancouver and Toronto as the property hotspot of Canada.

The latest data released by the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board reveals that there was an increase of 16 per cent year-on-year in the amount of Montreal property sold during July, reaching a total of 3,075. The figure represents the highest July figure for eight years.

The sharp rise in the Montreal property market comes as real estate sales in Toronto and Vancouver fell by 40.4 per cent and 8.2 per cent respectively.

Property prices also rose in Montreal, with average single-family home values rising by 8 per cent when compared to July 2016, reaching a median price of $323,000. Average condominium prices rose by 2 per cent to $256,000.

Mathieu Cousineau, president of the GMREB board of directors, said: ‘For single-family homes, market conditions for resales are increasingly favouring sellers, which explains why price increases have been more sustained in recent months.’

The rise in both sales and prices on Montreal property has been partly put down to punative tax measures against overseas property investors introduced by the British Columbia and Ontario governments in order to cool down the property markets of Vancouver and Toronto.

Vancouver first introduced an extra 15 per cent tax on foreign property investors a year ago. Ontario followed suit with its own 15 per cent tax on overseas property investors in April of this year.

It is felt that these taxes introduced have encouraged overseas investors to instead move their attention to Montreal, resulting in the rises now being seen.

Although the extra taxes have reduced property transactions in the two cities, prices are still up year-on-year, with average residential property prices in Vancouver topping the $1 million dollar mark for the first time in July, reaching $1,019,400.

However, attention now seems to be moving over to Montreal, where average prices are much lower and there seems more potential for growth.