Island of Montreal prices stabilizing in December, rising sharply in outlying areas

By Building Last updated Jan 11, 2022

The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) has released its residential real estate market statistics for the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) for the month of December, based on the real estate brokers’ Centris provincial database.

“Transactional activity was strong during the month of December, although experiencing a 19 per cent drop in sales compared to the same period last year. This downturn is consistent with a marked decrease in new listings which is always more significant in December,” remarks Charles Brant, director of market analysis, QPAREB. “Buyers are trying to take advantage of very low mortgage rates before the announced increases take effect in 2022. Consequently, the ongoing marked market imbalance in favour of sellers continues to result in a sharp rise in prices on the outskirts of the Island of Montreal, all property categories combined. On the island, prices for single-family homes have tended to level off in the past few months, particularly in areas where median prices are reaching levels that are unaffordable for a large proportion of potential buyers, thus favouring Montreal’s peripheral areas,” he notes.

December highlights

With only a 2 per cent drop in year-to-date sales, the Montreal CMA real estate market was particularly active in 2021. It should also be noted that this activity is compared with 2020, an historical year in terms of sales and despite the lowest number of listings ever recorded in the region.

More specifically, despite a 19 per cent drop in sales in December, it nevertheless ranks second for the most active December on record, reaching 3,675 sales.

The smallest drop was recorded in Vaudreuil-Soulanges (-7 per cent) while the Island of Montreal
(-14 per cent), the South Shore and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (-18 per cent) experienced more significant declines. The strongest decreases were observed on the North Shore (-26 per cent) and Laval (-27 per cent).

Single-family homes and income properties saw the largest drop in sales, respectively -26 per cent and -18 per cent, followed by condominiums (-10 per cent).

Active listings of condominiums (-29 per cent) and single-family homes (-26 per cent) continued to register sharp declines for this period, contrasting with plexes (-6 per cent).

With market conditions still very strongly to the advantage of sellers, median prices continue to experience significant increases compared to the same period last year for single-family homes (+22 per cent). They remain at high levels for condominiums (+17 per cent) and small income properties (+14 per cent).