It was a significant quarter for residential sales in Quebec. According to a report by the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB), the province experienced an 8 per cent uptick in residential property sales compared to the same period in 2018 – the largest quarterly increase in sales since the third quarter of 2005.
Condominium sales experienced the biggest bump during the quarter with a 14 per cent increase (7,253 transactions). Plexes (2 to 5 dwellings) also performed well with an increase of 13 per cent (2,400), followed by single-family homes at 6 per cent (19,410). All told, 29,212 sales were closed during the period.
“Sales in Quebec are at their highest level in fourteen years, in a context where active listings have registered a fourteenth consecutive quarterly drop at an average pace of 10 per cent of inventory per quarter,” said Charles Brant, Director of the QPAREB’s Market Analysis Department. “The most remarkable thing is that this situation is widespread throughout the majority of the province’s CMAs and agglomerations.”
QPAREB reports that the average price of a condo increased by 2 per cent within the time period and half of all condos sold for more than $240,000. Moreover, it adds, “The average selling time of condominiums also dropped significantly over the past year. Across the province, a condominium sold in the second quarter of the year remained on the market for 94 days, which is a drop of 15 days compared to the second quarter of 2018. This was the twelfth consecutive quarter that average selling times fell for condominiums and the tenth consecutive quarter for single-family homes.”
The report highlights a number of positive trends for the region. Sales were up in all six of Quebec’s census metropolitan areas, including Trois-Rivières (+19 per cent), Saguenay (+17 per cent) and Quebec City (+15 per cent) CMAs led the way, followed by the Gatineau (+10 per cent), Montreal (+8 per cent) and Sherbrooke (+4 per cent). Smaller urban centres such as Sept-Îles, Saint-Sauveur, Val-d’Or, and Rivière-du-Loup also performed well.
QPAREB’s report is compiled with data from the brokerage’s Centris provincial database.
