BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report
As the price of a home continues to march ever higher in just about every community across the country, a growing number of Canadians are facing a harsh housing affordability challenge. The economics are creating new trends in some markets, including Vaudreuil-Soulanges, where the demand for lower-price condos is seeing a slight uptick, while the pace of sales of single-family homes is slowing.
But given the predominance of single-family homes in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, the sale of this style of housing continues to be the leading indicator that characterizes the market trends in this region, according to the latest statistics released by the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers.
“Everyone is in a collective breath-hold waiting for rates to drop,” said Paul Laflamme, a broker with Royal LePage Village in Hudson.
According to the data, the average price of a single-family home in Vaudreuil-Soulanges increased 4 per cent in the first half of 2024, while condos in the region have jumped 10 per cent in the same period.
With prices rising, pushing home ownership out of the grasp for more and more people, this region is still considered a deal in comparison to other parts of the country and province.
“We’re still a bargain compared to Toronto and Vancouver,” Laflamme said, adding that buyers still get “more house and more land” for their dollar here compared to places like the West Island.
The average selling price of a single-family home in the 1019 region in June was $575,000, down from $600,000 seen in January. The latest prices, however, are still 5.5-per-cent above where they were at the end of the second quarter of 2023, when the average price was $545,000.
“The momentum of the first quarter continued in most Quebec regions with an increase in sales and prices in the second quarter,” Charles Brant, the director of market analysis for the brokers’ group, said in a statement issued last month.
“Although the peak spring season lived up to expectations in terms of sales, it may have disappointed many buyers who anticipated benefiting from both an increase in property inventory and the first drop in the key interest rate in four years,” Brant continued.
The condominium market in the region is still seeing prices climb even while the number of units on the market continues to increase.
The average selling price for a condo in Vaudreuil-Soulanges in June was $352,500, up from $320,000 in February. There are no figures for January, as the number of units sold that month was considered too low to produce reliable statistics, according to the report by the brokers’ association.
A total of 272 condos in the region were sold in the first half of 2024, according to the brokers’ association’s statistics. That is just 94 short of the total number sold in all of 2023.
Region 2nd in Greater Montreal
Although the average selling price of a single-family home was up slightly in June – at $575,000 compared with the previous month, when it was $570,000 – the average selling price was down from the all-time high this year of $600,000, which was recorded in January.
The cost of a home in this region continues to rank as the second highest compared with other regions in the Greater Montreal area, trailing only behind the prices recorded on the island of Montreal, where the average selling price in June was $722,500.
Area above provincial average
The average selling price of a home in Vaudreuil-Soulanges in the first half of 2024 – $572,000 – is 28-per-cent higher than the provincial average, recorded at $447,000 in the first six months of the year.
Looking ahead, Laflamme said an additional drop in interest rates, which is widely anticipated, could stimulate buyers, but the biggest factor that could affect prices in this region is the opening of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Hospital. With the health-care centre adding more than 3,000 jobs to the area by the end of 2026, the demand for housing will increase.