Come and Gone!

I sold a couple a cute little house on Newmarch St. in Verdun five years ago. It was a dollhouse, barely more than 900 square feet on two floors, as rustic as a country cottage and with a big fenced yard out front with a vegetable garden. It was perfect for a young couple just starting out.

Next time I saw them, they had two little ones, aged 3 and 16 months, and the little house was as cute as ever but now bursting at the seams with toys and baby paraphenalia.

The little house on Newmarch went back on the market and, with just s few weeks, caught the eye of another buyer who fell for its rustic charm, quiet yet central location and the big fenced yard.

Listed at $298,000. Sold at $280,000 in no time flat!

Looking for Real Estate Deals

I just took part in a live chat hosted by The Gazette on the topic of finding real estate deals. The questions came at us fast and thick. It was a bit chaotic but lotsa fun.

You can read the transcript here. There are some good tips for finding deals and knowing a deal when you see one.

What $180,000 to $190,000 Can Get You

At least 280 properties have sold since the beginning of 2009 for between $180,000 and $190,000 in greater Montreal. Included in that number are at least 67 single-family homes.
That should be good news to anyone who thinks that housing prices have risen beyond reach. Know hope! There are still plenty of affordable homes to be had, especially if you are willing to be something of an adventurer and take up residence outside your comfort zone. Yes, my Plateau hipsters, I'm talking to you!

The three properties posted here all sold for between $180k and $190k this year. They are all located in central neighborhoods and offer three different ownership possibilities.

The bottom photo features a duplex on Dumas St. in Ville Emard, located within walking distance of the Monk métro stop and near Ignace-Bourget Park, home to an awwwwwesome tobogganing hill.
The duplex features two two-bedroom apartments, each rented at $500 a month. The listing mentioned the possibility of quick owner occupancy. By paying 5 per cent down and using the rent from the other unit, a buyer could in theory reduce the monthly mortgage payment to about $500 a month.

The middle photo shows an upper undivided condo on St. Vallier St. in lovely Petite Patrie.
(I've been enchanted by St. Vallier St. ever since first hearing the Beau Dommage song Tous les Palmiers. It's about saying goodbye to sunny tropical climes for the joy of Montreal in early spring. "Adieu, adieu pays des oranges/ J'm'en vais aider mon frère qui déménage." The chorus goes "Soixante dix-sept soixante St-Vallier, Montréal.)
I digress.
The building is held in undivided co-ownership, which means that rather than buying a unit, the buyer acquires a fraction of the total building. Undivided properties generally sell for less than comparable divided properties. The upside is that they have lower school and municipal taxes. The downside is that buyers generally have to put at least a 20 per cent deposit when purchasing. This upgraded upper features two bedrooms and a balcony, plus a large storage area in the basement. The Beaubien métro is close by, as are St. Denis and Beaubien Sts., Little Italy and the Jean-Talon market.

The top photo features a Montreal shoebox-style bungalow in eastern Ville-Marie. In fact, it's so far east I'm not sure why it isn't considered Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, or HoMa, as the cool kids are calling it these days.
This 1,000-square-foot home has three closed bedrooms, as well as a living room and dining. The kitchen has a skylight and there are patio doors leading to an enclosed backyard. The garden has a pear tree, an apple tree and a cherry tree, as well as three kinds of grape vines. There's a fireplace in the living room and many upgrades including thermal windows, copper plumbing and a new hot water tank. The house is within five minutes of Frontenac métro.

These are just three of the nearly 300 properties that sold for between $180,000 and $190,000 so far this year. There are plenty of others to choose from in places like Rivière des Prairies, Pierrefonds and Mercier. If you're thinking of buying and affordability is on your mind, looking outside the hottest neighborhoods is a good option. You won't be alone. In its last quarterly market update, The Greater Montreal Real Estate Board reported that prices across the region rose 2 per cent between January and April. HoMa was one neighborhood that beat the Montreal average - prices there rose by 17 per cent, compared to the same quarter last year. Bargain-conscious buyers are flocking there. The same can be said for the Southwest borough, where prices are up a minimum of 37 per cent and as much as 55 per cent, depending of property type, over the last five years.

Accès Condos and the Lure of Free Money

The fire that gutted 96 units under construction in the Faubourg Contrecoeur condominium development has focused attention - though not the best kind - on the city's Accès Condos program.
As many as 40 buyers were hoping to move into their affordably priced condos between now and July 1 on the site of the old Lafarge quarry in Mercier. Those plans are now on hold until at least October, following a suspicious fire that razed the project to its foundation. The arson squad is investigating.
It is a stroke of pure misfortune for buyers using the Accès-Condos program to become homeowners.
Accès-Condo works in two ways. First, the municipal housing agency, the SHDM, sells land to builders at an advantageous price if they promise to build affordable housing.
Next, the SHDM advances buyers 10 per cent of the purchase price as a down payment. Buyers are only obliged to put down $1,000 of their own money.
The cash advance is repaid only when the owner-occupant decides to sell, whether in a year, two years or 25 years. At the time of the sale, the vendor also has to pay the SHDM 10 per cent of the profit.
I love the concept of Accès Condos, but there are a few things I would advise any buyer before plunging in. This advise is based on my own experience as an agent, working both with buyers and sellers.
Don't buy into the project as a short-term thing. If you buy today and sell next year - your home will not have risen in value sufficiently to pay off the SHDM "loan" and part of the profit. You also run the risk of competing with other unfinished and unsold units still available in your building. This investment will gain in value the longer you hold onto it.
Beware of shoddy workmanship. These condos tend to be quickly built, using cheaper finishes and less than careful workmanship. In one Acceès Condos building where I had a unit for sale, gaps appeared in the hardwood floors every winter when the heating came on, the air dried out and the wood shrank. The gaps closed in the spring and summer, but they looked like hell for five months of the year. Buyers were not impressed.
My advise? Accès Condos is fantastic for buyers who are unable to scrape together a down payment on their own. It has helped working families in places like St. Laurent, Cartierville and Côte des Neiges buy three-bedroom condos at reasonable prices, allowing them to stay in these neighborhoods.
There's no such thing as free money, however. My advice to a first-time buyer would be to scrape up the money for a down payment on your own and buy a place that you really love in a neighborhood that you really like. Buy to stay, not because you're getting a deal.

First Time Buyers Into The Fray

I mentioned the phenomenal number of first-time buyers who've called me since the beginning of the year. It seems it might be a trend.
Phil Soper, CEO of Brookfield Real Estate Services, says factors like historically low mortgage rates and declining prices in many parts of Canada, are luring newbies back into the housing hunt. This is a reversal of the recent market trend which saw sales fueled by downsizing baby boomers.
Now the babies of the baby boomers could step up in big numbers. They're an interesting bunch, as Soper pointed out at the Scotiabank Real Estate Outlook Forum in Toronto today.
Generation Next, now in their 20s and 30s, were raised in homes where both parents worked. Today's first-time buyers tend to be self-reliant, tech-savvy and able to do their own research. They will use all the on-line tools at their disposal to suss out neighborhoods, prices and services before making an informed housing choice.
In recent years, first-timers have been pushed to the sidelines but they might just what we need to put a little spark into the market.
(Brookfield owns the Royal LePage and La Capitale banners, by the way, so you know Phil Soper has a finger on the industry pulse.)