21 Jun Foreign Home Buyers Are Looking To Montreal

Foreign Home Buyers Are Looking To Montreal

According to the greater Montreal Real estate Board there were 5,057 residential sales in May, a 15 per cent increase from last year. The median cost of a single family home increased to 6 per cent from last year to $319,000.

“As I understand it, non-resident buyers have been a growing factor in Montreal for some time,” said Doug Porter, chief economist with the Bank of Montreal. “It hasn’t been obvious since the inflows are not as significant as in Vancouver or Toronto, and the underlying market simply isn’t nearly as tight as in those other two cities, so prices have remained well contained. In fact, Montreal appears highly affordable globally, and that by itself may slowly generate more foreign buyer interest. While it’s early to say, certainly there is a good possibility that some flows may now gravitate to Montreal from the GTA”

Mathieu Bedard, an economist with the Montreal Economic Institute asks the question, “I think the question is, does a foreign buyer tax really have an effect?  We saw in Vancouver the market slow down after the tax and then started coming up again. These types of taxes have no long-term effect. It’s only politicians trying to give the impression of taking care of problems but it doesn’t affect the fundamental reason why prices are up and that’s a supply problem.”

According to Gary Marr from the Financial Post, “Vancouver is now seeing cost and sales elevating again after the province put a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in August, 2016. Sales in Greater Vancouver in May jumped 22.8 per cent from April, while prices rose 8.8 per cent in May from a year ago and 2.8 per cent from April.”

In the meantime, Carlos Leitao, the Quebec finance minister, said his department has no short term plans of implementing a foreign buyer’s tax, so Montreal is safe for now!

Here are the sales stats for Montreal Real Estate Residential Market May 2017 via the QFREB