Buyers-to-be struggle to purchase homes in Montreal’s housing market

Real estate broker AJ Kenth helps people buy their dream homes, yet he’s been struggling to buy a place since the pandemic.

The economy, high inflation and interest rates are playing a role in why many feel home ownership is becoming further from reality.

“We’ve just been beaten out of the market over and over,” he said.

“It’s difficult, partly because I’m self-employed as a real estate broker, so the way the bank looks at my salary is a little bit more complicated as well,” he said. “And prices of homes have been increasing, so every single year, although we save more, the price of the homes increase even more. So it’s just more difficult to get into the market.”

Home sales in the Montreal-area are up, jumping 30 percent in February compared to last year, according to the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers, but activity was still slightly below the historical average for the time of year.

Kenth and his wife Liana have been renting for the last four years.

“I think I had an outline of my dream home and until I didn’t find it, I wasn’t ready to make that jump,” he said. “And I told myself, ‘I’ll just keep saving until I find that dream home.’ But in hindsight, that’s the wrong way of thinking.”

Waiting only put him at a disadvantage, missing the boat when interest rates were low during the pandemic. Kenth says looking back, he should have settled and bought whatever he could to make the first move in entering the market.

“I was giving people a lot of advice but I wasn’t taking that advice myself,” he said.

Now Kenth scans listings daily for clients and himself looking at the daunting prices.

“I work with a lot of people who are professionals, nurses, they’re working in a bank, they have professional jobs, it’s hard,” he said. “Even people making $100,000 a year, they aren’t getting approved for mortgages.”

Real estate broker Joanne James says she’s seen a lot of people face challenges when deciding to buy a home.

“Income has not been increased to equate the increase of the cost of living and price ranges in the houses,” she said. “Years ago, I dealt with first-time buyers. They could have bought properties making $50,000 a year salary. You can’t do that now.”

She says many first-time buyers are being pushed further from the city.

“What a condo would cost you on the island of Montreal is very different off-island,” she said. “Châteauguay, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Beauharnois, Huntingdon, Ormstown, those are the places people are going to now. Because even in the Laurentians, it skyrocketed too, because everyone, during COVID, most of the people went up north to Laurentians.”

She recommends buying with multiple people, starting small or changing your criteria like Kenth did.

He says the dream of owning a single-family home, detached with a big backyard and a pool is getting really far for a lot of first-time home buyers.

“The compromise my wife and I made was to move further out. So instead of buying a condo, we’d move further out of the city, more north, more east, to get into a smaller, maybe semi-detached home,” he said.

He and his wife came up with a deadline to buy a home by the end of 2024.

“But it won’t be a home with a garage. My dream home would be a two-car garage with enough space in the backyard to build a pool.”