Mark Hickey is packing up his family’s belongings and preparing to leave his split-level home in Beaconsfield this weekend.
The owner has accepted an offer for his suburban home which is listed at $ 899,000.
“We got a lot of hits, we ended up in a multiple offer situation,” Hickey told Global News.
The owner cannot reveal the details of the offer as the sale has not been legally finalized, but he is very satisfied.
“This is the first time that I see some kind of frenzy in the market,” he said.
Read more:
“We’ve never seen anything like it before”: pandemic boosts Canadian real estate
This frenzy is almost commonplace in Greater Montreal and especially on the Island.
Homes for sale are hard to find and those that are listed often sell out quickly.
“We probably only have about five or six listings in the market right now, and we usually have three times as many – in a typical year,” says Team Broady real estate broker Mark Broady.
According to the Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers of Quebec, the listed number of single-family homes for sale on the island of Montreal fell 34% in February compared to the same period last year.
The value of those same listed homes rose 21 percent.
“It’s a new phenomenon, it’s something we’ve never seen… we’re outside the norm,” chief economist Eric Lemieux told Global News.
Read more:
Metropolitan Montreal home sales fell in February for the first time in six years
The coronavirus pandemic is pushing up prices as many people have decided to stay in their homes longer – doing renovations instead of trying to sell them.
Additionally, low interest rates attract buyers looking for homes with larger offices and backyards.
“All of these factors together only contribute to the perfect storm of a seller’s market,” Broady said.
According to Royal Lepage, Montreal leads among the three largest cities in Canada for overall fourth quarter year-over-year price increases for 2020.
Home prices in Montreal rose 12.4%, in Toronto by 10.4% and prices in Vancouver jumped 7.2%.
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
