06 Aug Montreal Real Estate Stories The Week Of August 5th

Montreal Real Estate Stories The Week Of August 5th

Montreal Real Estate Stories The Week Of August 5th – Some of this week’s headlines:

The Urban Design Conundrum About Transit Oriented Development

Montreal’s Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement represents the long term plan for housing projects to be built around TOD (transit oriented development).  The plan represents homes to be built between 2011 and 2031 strategically located near metro stations. Although this sounds like an ideal arrangement, Vancouver’s former city planner Brent Toderian has this to say: “the issue is that designing well-planned, livable places is about so much more than just building homes near transit. “I almost don’t even use the term (TOD) now. Transit isn’t the top priority. If we’ve created the right density, land-use mix and public realm design, people will walk and bike, which are higher priorities than just taking transit. Better than getting them to the transit station, we can get them to go to the downtown (area) and stay there. Some will take transit, but that’s how downtowns function. There are choices. By putting the pedestrian experience at the top, Toderian says, the design capitalizes on what he calls “the power of nearness.” When the things you need in your daily life are close by, it just makes sense to bike or walk.”

Read the full article:

Montreal real estate: Developers should put pedestrians before transit

The concept of transit-oriented development is deeply divisive in Montreal’s outer suburbs, and for good reason. Briana Tomkinson * Special to the Montreal Gazette Until recently, transit-oriented development, also known as TOD, was a term familiar only to those who enjoy geeking out on urban planning concepts.

Personally,  although I think having easy access to public transportation is a no brainer, the assault on the automobile in cities is insanity. Winters here in Montreal come with long and severe bouts of extremely cold weather. From Dec. 27 to Jan. 1, of 2018 the maximum temperature in Montreal did not rise above –17 C. This six-day stretch is the longest such cold streak on record, based on data going back 146 years. Montreal is not California and automobile convenience and usage will not change anytime soon. Having no place to park in the downtown core or other neighborhoods like Griffintown will only create more frustration, and a serious strain on our most valuable resources. The loss of time, the increased use of gas and carbon dioxide spewed into the environment makes no sense. Families are encouraged to move into the downtown core yet spaces and access to parking are not designed with their needs in mind.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-cold-weather-streak-1.4470272

The overall state of the Montreal Real Estate Market – Montreal vs Toronot and Vancouver

5 Reasons why Montreal’s real estate market will never match Vancouver’s or Toronto’s

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Latest Montreal market news:

Sales

• The 4 per cent increase in sales in the second quarter of 2018 represents the sixteenth consecutive quarterly sales increase in the Montréal CMA.
• Condominiums remained the most dynamic property category with a 13 per cent jump (5,120) in the number of transactions, while plexes (1,332) registered a modest increase of 1 per cent.
• Sales of single-family homes (8,301) fell for the first time since the second quarter of 2014 (-1 per cent)

Median price

• The median price of single-family homes ($322,509) and condominiums ($253,000) in the Montréal CMA continued to rise, growing by 3 per cent for both property categories. The median price of plexes with two to five dwellings ($510,000) also continued to increase (+6 per cent).
• Like in the previous quarter, the Island of Montréal and Vaudreuil-Soulanges stood out with the largest increases in median price, at 7 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.
• These two areas also stood out for their increase in the median price of condominiums: +5 per cent on the Island of Montréal and +6 per cent in Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

Active listings

• On average, just over 24,000 residential properties were listed on the Centris system in the second quarter of the year, the lowest second-quarter level since 2010.
• This also represents a 17 per cent decrease compared to the second quarter of last year and the eleventh consecutive quarterly drop in active listings.

The Montreal CMA is in a seller’s market.

Information source via Centris and the QFREB

Read the full Barometer Report