In the inaugural edition of Montreal Centre-Ville, there’s an article on the booming real estate market in Montreal, and the impact of the gentrification of many downtown areas.
There’s nothing particularly new if you have kept an eye on the construction going on and the increasing number of for sale/rent signs, but the facts and figures are interesting nonetheless:
Some stats:
- Starting price for a 800 square-foot condo unit is $250,000 to buy, or $1,000/month to rent.
- Montreal remains the best city for real estate in North America, explaining the draw of European, Asian or Arab investors.
- Average annual income on the island of Montreal is $62,000.
- The three groups that are driving demand for new units are:
1. young career couples with no children and high incomes
2. 50-60 year olds whose children have left the house
3. foreign investors.
- Montreal has a target of 30% of new residential construction to be affordable housing for low or modest income households.
- Demographically, people aged 50 and over make up 30% of the population (vs. 25% a decade ago); people under 30 now only make up 38% (vs. 43% a decade ago).
- The city has plenty of undeveloped land (parking lots, etc.) that could represent 15,000 new units.
But don’t expect a rush in building these, because:
- Slightly 1600 new units have not yet found buyers, this represents demand for two years.
All in all, I don’t think real estate in Montreal is going to hit a wall because there’s still much room for growth in an increasingly global market, but clearly, on a micro scale, the real estate market for condos is a buyer’s market.