He got the call on Wednesday, and by Saturday, Joseph Montanaro was brokering Westmount’s biggest sale so far this year: a $7-million country-style estate in the heart of the city.
For the buyer, it will be a gut job.
Although he originally intended to do only cosmetic updates, Montanaro said, the buyer has decided on a more ambitious renovation to transform the house into his dream home.
“He decided it will be his last home and will make it exactly as he wants,” Montanaro said.
The nine-bedroom intergenerational home is a traditional Georgian-revival style, and the clients want to update it to a more modern, transitional style. They will be opening walls and combining spaces to get their dream kitchen and also plan to build an outdoor kitchen on the massive south-facing terrace, he said.
The buyer is moving from a $7.5-million, 4,500-square-foot luxury condo that he has owned for about a decade, Montanaro said. While initially he had planned to buy a country house and keep a pied-à-terre in the city, the Westmount property offered the best of both worlds.
It was the grounds that sold the buyers on the home. The property is substantial, an 18,000-square-foot lot on two levels with a huge pool area and a pool house.
“You’re getting a lot of outdoor space and city views, yet you’re surrounded by trees,” Montanaro said. “It’s a majestic property.”
Montanaro, a Re/Max Action broker, specializes in selling top-tier real estate in areas like Westmount, Outremont, Ville-Marie and Town of Mount Royal. In addition to selling in Montreal, he also represents his roster of international clients in cities like New York and Paris. Deals like this are his bread and butter, yet Montanaro said the real estate market in Montreal is hotter than he has ever seen.
While the $7-million sale doesn’t best the all-time high for Westmount recorded on Centris (a $9-million property Montanaro sold last year), it’s the fifth sale over $5 million in the area this year. That’s almost as many as were sold in the last two years. In both 2018 and 2019, there were only three deals in Westmount over $5 million on file, he noted.
It’s not just Westmount where luxury property is in demand. In the Greater Montreal area, data from the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers reveal there were twice as many sales over $1 million in the third quarter (July 1 to Sept. 30) of this year compared with the year-earlier period: 687 versus 314.
High-end homes are also selling faster than before. Just last week, Montanaro sold two $4-million houses that were on the market for less than 24 hours. One was in Westmount, the other in Outremont.
Montanaro said it’s a misconception that most buyers at this price point are foreigners. In fact, most are local. Although the pandemic has had a profound economic impact, the damage has not been equally dealt. In some industries, business is booming. With travel and entertainment spending down and mortgages cheaper than ever, Montreal’s elite are putting their money in their homes.
“It’s interesting for the Montreal market. We weren’t used to these price points just a couple of years ago. Prices here are still not to the level of other Canadian cities, but we’re catching up, and we’re catching up fast,” he said.
That’s not to say foreign buyers have lost interest in Montreal. In particular, Montanaro has seen a surge of interest from American buyers. Some want to move here permanently, while others are looking for a second home or apartment to get away from the turmoil south of the border.
The requirement for travellers to quarantine for two weeks after crossing the border is a strong deterrent, he said, so these buyers are serious. And they’re not afraid to spend. Montanaro said three of the buyers he’s representing right now are Americans with “very big budgets.”
If only there were more properties to show them. Red zone restrictions have led some sellers to limit showings or even take homes off the market.
“Everything is selling,” Montanaro said.
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