Million-dollar sales highlight August list

The mid-summer month was busy for notaries and moving companies as 19 Westmount houses and three duplexes were transferred in sales totalling $24,540,500, thus an average $1,115,477 per property. Prices averaged almost 48 per cent higher than the 2004 municipal valuations, down very slightly from the July average but about equal to the average for the year. The highest price of $3,500,000 involved a mountainside mansion at 22 Edgehill Road, totally renovated and with a garage on The Boulevard connected to the house by a tunnel and elevator. The other $2 million-plus houses were also in the Summit area; one of those, 174 Edgehill, sold for $2,120,000 which was less than 10 percent higher than its municipal evaluation, the lowest markup of the month. The lowest price, $485,000, involved a row house at 118 Lewis Avenue. A duplex at 451-53 Grosvenor Avenue which sold for $740,000 represented the highest markup on the list, way over the municipal evaluation of $328,000. The three duplexes transferred in August are the first full duplexes to sell since March, though there have been six shares of duplexes sold this year, including 520 Grosvenor Avenue which is included in the current list. Among condominiums, the four reported include three apartments and one converted duplex, the lowest price for a two-bedroom apartment in one of Westmount's newest condo buildings on Côte des Neiges Road near Belvedere Road. Prices of all the others are over $500,000, the highest for a 12th-floor apartment at 1 Wood Avenue, $750,000. This is about the same level at which many condos -- either in converted duplexes or apartment buildings -- have been selling for the past several months. One more sale involves a usufruct arrangement for an apartment in the three-address building at 435-439 Grosvenor Avenue which has been divided into co-ownership over the past year. While many other buildings around Westmount have been sold off as co-op apartments (2-3 Westmount Square, for example, or 300 Lansdowne) there has been no land transfer and thus no need to register the sales publicly. In this case, it appears the register is made but no transfer tax is charged by the city.

The only other sale registered in August involved a very small apartment building at 319 Grosvenor Avenue, just north of de Maisonneuve Boulevard, which sold well below its 2004 municipal evaluation, not to mention the 2007 assessment.

Most of the August registrations involved sales negotiated in the late spring, mainly between April and June