Buying a second home, which was a possibility for many twenty years ago, has become a practically impossible dream for middle-class Quebecers.
In the province’s main holiday areas, house prices have doubled since the pandemic.
If prices for single-family properties and condos have exploded in recent years, it’s even worse for second homes.
Royal LePage estimates the average price of a single-family home in Quebec’s major vacation areas to be $404,838 in 2024.
- MRC des Pays-d’en-Haut: Around Sainte-Adèle
- MRC des Laurentides: St-Agatha-des-Monts to Mont-Tremblant
- MRC de la Jacques-Cartier: North of Quebec City
- Côte-de-Beubre MRC: East of Quebec
- MRC de Matawinie: covers two-thirds of the Lanaudière region
If you dream of a property on the water’s edge, you should expect to spend more, and if you want the house not too far from Montreal or Quebec, prices will rise even more.
The lowest price we see for a single-family home is $205,000 in MRC des Appalachians in the Saudier-Appalachia region. By contrast, prices were highest in Promont, in the Eastern Townships, at $713,074.
Effect of infection
The epidemic marked the front and back of the recreational property market, estimates real estate broker Véronique Boucher at Royal LePage in Estrie.
In Bromont and Memphrémagog, the areas where he works, demand really exploded during this period. People wanted to leave the city and get space
The broker observes.
Teleworking and improved connectivity across the region have made it easier for workers to move outside of major centers.
Due to the increase in demand, the price has gone up.
Since then, despite some returning to work in person and rising interest rates, the market hasn’t really slowed down, Véronique Boucher observes.
Cottages that become houses
This is because people are increasingly settling permanently in regions that were previously considered only for holiday purposes.
Before the pandemic, cottage buyers were mainly retirees who sold their main home in the city and moved full-time to the surrounding areas.
Now, there are also families and professionals who, thanks to teleworking, can escape the metro-work-sleep, notes Mark Bonnefant, a real estate broker at Royal LePage in the Capital-National area.
Domaine de la Montagne project in the municipality of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury
Photo: Construction CRD/Devplus
In Stoneham (which is part of La Jacques-Cartier MRC), 15 years ago, there were only old houses and a few apartments and ski rooms, he says. Currently, complete apartments are being built there.
Around Stoneham, 95% of what we sell is condos. People now live in Stoneham.
They have access to all the services and nature within half an hour of Quebec, he insists.
Several rooms become primary residences. In 2008 there were 158,286 holiday homes, but in 2024 there will be only 133,483.
The trend was already there before the pandemic and has become more pronounced since then, explains Eric Leger, a broker at Royal LePage in Laurentian.
When I started, in the early 1980s, the equation was 75%-80% second homes and 20% primary homes. Today it is the opposite.
Who Can Still Buy a Second Home?
While many people find the added value of selling a property in the city to acquire another in the countryside, buying a second home no longer fits all budgets.
If you start from nothing, you don’t have an owner, and if you want to buy, the step up is sure to be high
Recognizes Eric Leger.
Sylvain B. Tremblay, Planner and Vice President of Optimum Gestion de placements inc. He had trained for the show in 2017 ScoutsTo calculate how much it would cost a family to buy a second home.
If the value of the rooms has increased, their number is decreasing.
Photo: Getty Images / powerofforever
He estimated that a cabin priced at $350,000 (about what a lakefront property in the Laurentians would cost at the time), would require a disposable income of $83,000 a year.
What after seven years?
We are elsewhere, Mr. Tremblay responds. Not only have house prices nearly doubled, but interest rates have tripled. The cost of acquiring a second home is huge. I don’t recommend it unless you have an astronomical income.
A middle-class taxpayer, even a couple with two incomes of $100,000 a year, has little room for maneuver.
He repeated the exercise, calculating the amount needed for one couple to pay the mortgage on a property in Montreal and another on a second home in MRC des Pays-d’en-Haut.
Conclusion: You need $174,000 in disposable income to buy a room for $535,000.
In addition to mortgage costs, we have to pay an amount for infrastructure-related costs like a septic tank or artesian well, Mr. Tremblay recalled.
At this price, Eric Leger sums it up well, Not everyone has a room in the north
.
These are win-win conditions for those who want to sell their property. For buyers, on the other hand, you either have to be lucky or frugal over the years.
They may convince themselves that it is still possible to rent. With a large number of these new buyers counting on rental income to pay back their purchase, supply is even more important.
The number of tourist residency permits has seen tremendous growth in recent years.
They can also tell themselves that the situation is much worse in other parts of the country. Quebec still lags behind the western provinces and Ontario in the cost of entertainment.
A single-family home in Whistler, British Columbia cost more than $4.4 million in 2023 and Canmore, Alberta more than $1.5 million. The national average in 2024 is $678,930.
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