Real estate market rebalancing continues slowly in Quebec, as home sales and prices have declined in the second quarter of 2023.
Data released Thursday by the Association professionnelle des courtiers immobiliers du Québec (APCIQ) show a 13% decline in sales for the months of April, May and June compared to the same period last year, despite a 36% increase in registrations.
The median price of a single-family home was $430,000, down 4%, while that of a condominium was $369,000, down 3% compared to the same quarter of the year last. It should be noted, however, that these prices are up from the previous quarter, ie by 8% and 6% in the case of houses and condominiums respectively.
The fall in sales in the second quarter of 2023 is, however, less significant than those recorded during the previous three quarters, suggesting a return of buyers who, according to the APCIQ, are encouraged by a certain stabilization of interest rates and prices.
However, the time to sell a house or condominium has dropped from just over a month to almost two months, a sign of an easing of tensions in the market, according to the association.
Marked regional differences
However, these provincial data hide completely different realities from one region to another. Thus, in metropolitan areas, while the number of sales fell in Gatineau (-17%), Montreal (-15%), Sherbrooke (-13%) and Quebec (-7%), it was stable in Trois-Rivières (-1%) and on the rise in Saguenay (+5%).
Price variations were also uneven, while prices for single-family homes were up in Sherbrooke (+7%), Saguenay (+6%) and Drummondville (+5%) and stable in Quebec City (+1%). In Saguenay, the median price of a condominium was even up 10%.
In smaller agglomerations, it is Baie-Comeau that takes the prize for increases in the median price of single-family homes (+12%) and Sainte-Adèle suffers the largest drop, with a decline of 10%.
At the Canadian level, data from the firm Royal LePage paint the picture of the second quarter. We learn that the average price of houses – a figure that differs from the median price – in Canada fell slightly during the months of April to June compared to the same period a year ago.
Canadian data
The Royal LePage Property Price Survey indicates that the overall price of a home in Canada fell 0.7% year-over-year to $809,200 in the second quarter of 2023 .
Royal LePage says the real estate market is close to the point where it will have fully recovered from the market correction seen last year when interest rates started to rise.
The price of the aggregate, which averages the median values of all housing types, fell 5.6% in the second quarter from its peak in the first quarter of 2022.
According to Royal LePage, prices for the fourth quarter of this year are expected to show an increase of 8.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.