What’s the right price you should pay for a condo in Montreal ?
If there is one important metric you should consider as a condo investor before adding a new asset in a portfolio, this metric would be the price per square foot. It actually makes better sense to say “I purchased a condo for $525/sq.ft where the market is at $550/sq.f than saying I paid $15,000 lower than my neighbor condo because it does not take the size”
For condo buyer and condo investor interested in the Montreal market, we wanted to give you an insight of what happened last year and what you could find in the new construction condo market in Montreal.
Let’s first take a look at the median price in general
At the event “Fenêtres sur le marché” organized by “La Fédération des Chambres Immobilières du Québec” last week, the median price for a condominium in downtown Montreal is $466,500 compare to $320,733 in Ville-Marie or $275,000 in the South-West.
The median price per square feet
Now, we ll take the media price per square feet of what happened last year in the new construction condo market in Montreal.
We again see a difference between a downtown location with a $476/sq.f. as median price compare to $312/sq.f in Montreal excluding downtown.
We also stated in our last article that people are willing to pay a premium for a better location with a better Walkscore, access to public transit or parking. Click here if you want to read it.
Median price VS average price
The median price will cut in half all the transactions made last year and makes an easier metric to compare condo prices. This means that half of the transactions made in downtown condo project were below $476/sq.f and the other half above this same number.
The median price could also be affected by the type of transactions. If more studios of 200K were sold last year it would then affect the median price compare than it we would have more 1M penthouse sold it would then affect the median price higher.
The average price will be the average of a condo project considering all type of units and size. We will then mix a penthouse price with a studio price together to have an average.
This average price will be affected by the size of units and prices. If a condo project only offer 400 sq. f. unit around 250K, it can not be really compared to a condo project offering 500 sq. f. units around 500K, location being the same.
Starting price in current new condo projects
Now let’s compare those numbers with what offers the pre-construction condo market with currents downtown projects in Montreal. This is here an average we made based on our pricing list we have from the builders and could be changed anytime without notice.
We also exclude taxes and parking to make sure we are doing the same comparables with 2016 prices. Please note also that we took starting prices of available units only and we only took downtown condo projects.
Studio
- O’nessy Condominiums starts at $421/sq. f.
- TOM Condos starts at $465/sq. f.
1 bedroom
- Icones starts at $545 sq. f.
- O’nessy Condominiums starts at $426/sq. f.
- Tom Condos starts at $462/sq. f.
2 bedroom
- O’nessy Condominiums starts at $450/sq. f.
- TOM Condos starts at $503/sq. f.
- Le Peterson starts at $468/sq. f.
Would like to know the prices in other condo projects or areas in Montreal ?
We only took downtown condo projects in this article but if you would like to have the numbers in Griffintown projects or others ares in Montreal, feel free to contact us.
Source: FCIQ, Altus Group and Centris.ca
