Figures released this week from the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board showed Montreal's real estate winning streak continued through the month of September.
The board says almost 2,900 sales were completed last month in the Montreal area — that's up six per cent from the same month last year.
In Laval, home sales shot up a whopping 17 per cent, spearheading a five per cent increase overall across the region.
The figures showed that much of that growth was spurred on by an 11 per cent jump in condo sales, while sales of single-family homes actually dipped slightly.
The average price of a home rose 2.6 per cent to nearly $365,000.
Paul Cardinal with the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards, says Montreal's roll has been going on for some time.
"For the past three years, we have monthly increases in the number of transactions," says Paul Cardinal with the Quebec Association of Real Estate Boards. "And if we look at the cumulative increases from January to September, we're now at plus-seven per cent in terms of sales transactions."
Montreal's growth, he says, is being spurred on by three major factors — more job opportunities and record-low unemployment in the city, increased consumer confidence, and fewer people leaving the city.
And Cardinal suggests he expects that trend to continue in the coming months.
"I think that Montreal will continue to do very well, although we saw in August and September we saw signs of the employment market cooling down a little bit," he says. "We know that we also had our first two increases in interest rates [in recent months]."
Cardinal also says despite all the activity, he expects Montreal will remain an affordable housing market — at least compared with Toronto and Vancouver, where housing prices are roughly two and three times what they are here.
"It's almost impossible that we catch up in a short period of time [with Toronto or Vancouver]," he says, "but maybe the gap will be [made] smaller."
He suggests despite the relative bargains that can be found here, Montreal remains a seller's market — at least for now.
"Of course, you think it's a good bargain if you're from outside Canada...but if you look at the local dynamic between supply and demand, demand is a little stronger than supply. It's true for single-family homes and plexes. For condominiums, it's a more balanced market because most of the construction over the past few years was mostly condominiums."