Critically low inventory levels across Montreal continue to drive prices upward as battle weary buyers fight it out for the small number of available homes in the single family market.

Median prices for single family homes in the West Island rose by 31% year-over-year. Sales were down 9% in March vs March of last year and that’s strictly due to the lack of available housing as the number of active listings fell by a staggering 47% with only 278 homes on the market last month. To give you some perspective on just how low that number is, we had 1252 listings on the market in March 2016. 

Months of inventory hoverd at 1.2 – meaning that if no other homes hit the market, and the pace of buying continued, all of the inventory would be sold in 1.2 months. A typical balanced market would have between 4 and 6 months of inventory.

The condo market also came roaring back in the first quarter of this year with a 72% jump in sales during the month of March, compared to March 2020. 

We believe this is largely due to the lack of options and steep price increases in the single family market that forced most first-time buyers to turn to more affordable entry level condos to get in the market. 

Prices shot up 34%, hitting a median of $371,000 and the number of active listings rose by 25%. There are virtually no more detached homes available for under $500k and those that are under-priced are selling well over that number. 

If we take a look at the entire island of Montreal, the single family market saw the median price rise a whopping 36% when comparing March 2020 with March 2021 and in just the first quarter of this year, we saw prices jump 11% hitting $737,000. 

The number of sales were up 6% for the first quarter of this year compared to last, and up 17% for March vs March of last year. What makes this all the more impressive, is the fact that the number of active listings dropped 28% compared to March of last year with only 1035 single family homes on the market. 

The Median price of a condo in Montreal hit $403,000. That’s up 5% from March of last year, while the  number of sales was up significantly, jumping by 45% over March of 2020. Inventory rose by 73% (which is a lot) but with months of inventory sitting at a measly 2.6, the market is still firmly in favour of sellers. Again, if we go back to compare inventory levels with 2016, we were down 50%.

This has probably been the craziest quarter in the history of Montreal Real Estate. Is there any end in sight? Are we headed for a massive correction as many are predicting? It’s tough to say when this market will cool. Unless we start to see some major increases in inventory and a few more interest rate hikes, we suspect things will continue like this, at least for the foreseeable future.