The interest in chalets is not waning

Chalets by a lake or a river are popular. People buy to have their pied-à-terre in the countryside, but also with the intention of making a return on their “investment” by focusing on the interest in the rental market. Overview.

Yvon Laprade
Special collaboration

It was not in the plans of Sonia Lamoureux and her husband, Simon-Julien Élie, to buy “a beautiful log cabin” in the Laurentians. “We already lived in a natural environment in Saint-Lazare,” recount the latter, aged 48 and 47, respectively.

Then, at the end of November 2020, they went to visit this chalet by a lake in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson… And they made an offer to purchase which was accepted by the sellers, a few days before Christmas.

“It happened spontaneously. It was a total surprise for both of us. We said to ourselves that we had just given ourselves a big gift for December 25th! », They launch.

Since then, the couple who have three teenagers aged 11, 12 and 14 have regularly commuted between the home in the western suburbs of Montreal and the four-bedroom chalet.

“It has become our pied-à-terre in the Laurentians,” they point out about their upscale second home.

But there is no way it becomes an obligation that could turn into a constraint over the years. “We go there when we feel like it. We’re not here every weekend. ”

And when they are not there, they sometimes entrust the rental to an agency “which has very strict criteria”, they insist. “We all know that demand is very strong at the moment,” they argue. It gives us good income and it allows us to pay for improvements to the property, such as earthworks. “

Buy and resell

Supporting figures, Charles Brant, market analyst at the Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers of Quebec (APCIQ), confirms that the second home market posted returns in 2021 “well above what we experienced in 2019 and 2020 ”.

“It’s extremely active and stocks are at their lowest,” he notes. The relatively new chalets, with a good location, sell quickly and at a high price. ”

He speaks of increases “from 20% to 30%”, since the beginning of the year, in the vacation regions most popular with buyers, whether in Charlevoix, the Laurentians, the Townships. East, in Lanaudière and even in Mauricie, “where the market is on fire,” he emphasizes.

” There is [néanmoins] a risk that we end up with slightly inflated values ​​with the phenomenon of transactions carried out in overbidding mode, warns the analyst. There is a lot of euphoria and you have to be careful! ”

He cites the case of a property in a flood zone, by a river, which was sold for almost 20% more than the advertised price, and for which 10 potential buyers had submitted an offer.

Charles Brant also observes a phenomenon that has been growing since the start of the health crisis. “We are seeing a sharp increase in flips in the chalet market,” he said. In 2019, this represented 1.7% of transactions; in 2021, this proportion doubled to 3.4%. “

One thing is certain, for her part, notes the real estate broker Chantale Tardif, at Sotheby’s, the demand for second homes is not about to run out of steam. “But the problem is that we are short of stocks,” she observes in the field.

There is no doubt, according to her, that the pandemic has created “a sense of urgency” among very many buyers wishing to go “to live in larger spaces”.

Among these buyers are also… investors. “I get a lot of calls from clients looking for a property they expect to rent,” she argues.

The broker, which covers the territory between Saint-Jérôme and Sainte-Agathe, recalls, however, that the “majority” of tourist-oriented municipalities in the Laurentians have tightened their regulations regarding very short-term rentals.

The chalet, an alternative to travel

Anyway, Sonia and Simon-Julien are delighted to have made this acquisition which, in their own opinion, is a good investment and a great place to reunite their little family.

“It is certain that the pandemic influenced our decision, they concede. We used to go to Florida, to Western Canada, to go on trips to New York. Our reality has changed. We are now spending our money in Quebec. At the chalet, we do outdoor sports, we skate on the lake, we kayak, we go cycling. ”

And when the children have school holidays, they take the opportunity to “stretch out the weekends”.

In short, their story resembles that of the many city dwellers who have become owners of a second home over the past year to temporarily forget the health crisis and its constraints.