July Sales: Hold your Horses

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Volume dropped off sharply in July real estate sales and only three of the seven sales were above $1 million, causing a staistical surge in the value of the average home in Westmount. One sale at over $3 million, coupled with two under $800,000, distorted the averages but show that the market is still moving up.

On a year-to-year basis, prices are some 6 percent higher than they were last year and almost 14 percent hgher than in 2009, and it is clear that the average house has moved well above the $1.4 million level. Volume had surged in April and May but tailed off sharply last month, with the seven sales equalling July last year but otherwise the second-lowest volume for a July in the past dozen years.

There are still plenty of buyers out there, it would seem, and the low supply keeps pushing up the prices, though the fact that four of the sales ranged in price from $790,000 to $980,000 is an indication that buyers of the higher-priced houses might be sitting out the summer. Except for the highest-priced sale, which went slightly under valuation, all of the other sales ranged between 10 and 37 percent above valuation.

Three condominium sales, two apartments and a flat in a converted duplex, all were in the range of $700,000 to $760,000, and an average 15 percent above valuation, about the same as for one- and two-family dwellings.

A duplex in eastern Notre Dame de Grâce and two houses just east of Westmount made up the adjacent-Westmount register for July, though there had been twice that many sales in June. So far this year there have been two sales over $1 million in the Côte des Neiges district north of Westmount, none in the N.D.G. district to the west or the Shaughnessy Village sector to the southeast, two in the “Golden Square Mile” but 10 between Westmount and Atwater/Côte des Neiges. That compares to 64 $1-million-plus sales in Westmount proper this year, 13 of them over $2 million.

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