A vacation-time slowdown at city hall has meant that a sales list for the second half of May still was not available last week. The Examiner expects to publish the second-half sales along with a list for June next month, and to compile the statistics for all of May at that time.

Still, in the first half of the month (up to May 16) Westmount saw the sale of 11 homes for prices ranging from $550,000 to $1.6 million with an average markup of 25 per cent, higher than the average for the year to date or, for that matter, for all of 2007.

The highest price so far in May is $1.6 million, paid out for a two-storey home built in 1951 at 68 Summit Circle. It had been sold in July last year for $1,475,000 and reappeared on the market in September, asking $1,975,000. The lowest price of $550,000 involved 1110 Greene Avenue which sold out of an estate. That was the lowest price for a Westmount house since February.

In the first half of May, six condominiums changed hands in a fairly tight range between $333,000 and $650,000, including three apartments and three converted duplexes. Added to the two condo sales registered in April, the tally for the second quarter of this year is already as high as it was for the first quarter of 2008, and the average markup has gone up from 3 to 11 per cent. Besides the condominiums in May, a share of a duplex at 54 Thornhill sold for $599,000 and one more apartment in the complex at 435-39 Grosvenor Avenue, this time Apartment 4, sold for $315,000.

The only non-residential sale involved 344-44B Victoria Avenue, actually the third building sold by 4349610 Canada Inc. this year, for $370,000. In March its northern neighbour sold for $356,250 and in April the southern neighbour sold for $378,000.

So far in 2008, the average price of 53 one- and two-family sales in Westmount is $1,076,933, up only slightly from the average of $1,071,230 for all of 2007. The average markup so far this year is 20.14 per cent, up very slightly from 18.53 per cent for all of last year, thus in the broad perspective it might be suggested the market is moving sideways, but it is a good 10 per cent higher than it was in 2006.

NOTE: The preceding article relates to the registration of deeds of sale for Westmount property in early May, 2008, provided by City officials. The others will be published in an upcoming issue of The Examiner.