Beaconsfield, Kirkland real estate gets an attractive assessment boost!
18 Sep 2019
It's good news for homeowners who want to sell, but the news is not so good for, say, a young family who wants to buy a home in a leafy suburb.
Last week, the Montreal Agglomeration released property assessments for 2020-22 and Beaconsfield and Kirkland saw two of the biggest increases. Mayors for both cities were happy.
“My interpretation of the numbers is that they confirm that people are attracted to the quality of life in Beaconsfield,” Mayor Georges Bourelle said.
The value of Beaconsfield properties has increased on average by 25.9 per cent on the new roll.
“I think what drives the increase is the attractiveness of Beaconsfield’s lakefront location,” Bourelle said. “A high number of properties are being sold.”
Back in 2007, Beaconsfield experienced an even bigger evaluation hike — 38.6 per cent — but the last roll, beginning in 2017, showed only a modest 5.9 per cent bump.
Properties are being sold at a clip, but realtor Mark Broady of Royal Lepage/Team Broady said the act of hiking the municipal evaluation of homes actually has minimal impact on property sales because “in effect, what the (agglomeration) is doing is reacting to the realities of the market.”
Bourelle said that the increase, in itself, doesn’t do much for the city except that healthy sales mean a healthy welcome-tax coffer.
“What the increase says to homeowners is that if they’ve bought a house in Beaconsfield, they’ve made a good investment,” he said. “This is a city on the water, with a beautiful tree canopy and excellent services.”
Kirkland saw an evaluation-roll increase of 22.6 per cent with the average price of a Kirkland home now sitting at $633,500.
“It’s nothing to be scared about,” Mayor Michel Gibson said of the increased evaluation. “It’s simply a sign that real estate in Kirkland is doing amazingly well. A house here stays on the market, on average, 20 days. This is a community in demand.”
Gibson said the city has a good reputation, be it for its schools or its library programs.
“We’re really in a comfortable situation in Kirkland,” the mayor said. “Real estate doing well in Kirkland means good things for the city’s economy. Don’t connect the evaluation increase to an increase in municipal taxes. Cities increase their municipal taxes because they need more money to operate. We are well administered in Kirkland.”
Broady said Montreal is experiencing economic prosperity and as a result, the real estate market is heating up. It’s good news for homeowners who might want to sell, but the news is not so good for, say, a young family who wants to buy a single-family home in a leafy suburb.
“It’s becoming less and less affordable, while the markets in Toronto and Vancouver are levelling off a bit,” he said.
Broady said the median price of a Beaconsfield home three years ago was $515,000. In August, the median price had jumped to $668,500.
“That’s almost a 30 per cent increase over three years, which is exactly what’s happening with this assessment increase,” Broady said.
Bourelle said Beaconsfield homeowners should expect a municipal tax increase of around two per cent — aligning with the consumer price index — on the local property tax portion of their tax bill in 2020. However, there are exceptions to the rule. Bourelle said the two per cent rate might increase somewhat if a home is evaluated at a much higher amount than the average.
Around half of the total annual property tax bills facing residents of West Island cities is determined by the agglomeration.
The average evaluation hike for the agglomeration as a whole was 13.7 per cent. Island-wide, the average price of a single-family home was $600,900 and the average price of a condo/apartment was $365,000.
