New Statistics Revealed On Foreign Home Buyers

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation say foreign buyers are showing increasing interest in the Montreal market.

There has been a strong growth in the foreign buyer segment in 2016, which has continued into 2017, with a record of 235 foreign buyers in Montreal from January to April of this year. This is an increase of about 40 per cent year-over-year for the same period a year prior.

Foreign buyers still account for a very small portion of Montreal’s real estate market, despite the growing overseas interest.

“Although the number of  foreign buyers has continued to increase in the Montreal area since the beginning of 2017, purchases by foreign buyers represent only about 2 per cent of all transactions in the residential market”, Francis Cortellino, principal market analyst, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said.

CMHC published a report based on the government of Quebec land register data showing how interested are Chinese buyers in Montreal real estate this year.

They represent 17 per cent of foreign buyers in Montreal’s residential housing market, up 10 per cent a year ago.

“From January to April, 2017, 40 per cent of Chinese buyers opted for single-family homes compared with 28 per cent for U.S. buyers from China also more often chose homes in the municipalities of the island of Montreal surrounding the city of Montreal than buyers from the U.S. or France”.

Vancouver and Toronto’s implementation of respective 15 per cent taxes on overseas buyers within their markets, might be the cause of the growing interest in Montreal.

We are still to see whether or not Montreal follows suit; but with a mere 2 per cent market share being bought by foreign buyers, their influence on the market doesn’t appear to be significant.