2023-11-13 00:30:00
In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
Affordable condos protected from bidding wars even in 2023? It seemed too good to be true. So, I went to Sherbrooke to visit the rare apartments of this type currently in Quebec and… I am seduced!
“I paid $232,000 a year ago for my 4 and 1/2 with indoor parking built in 2020,” Louis-Philippe Gagné, 25, tells me, smiling.
This manager at Costco would not normally have been able to obtain such a large and bright apartment at such a price.
But the cooperative of owners (and not tenants) called Havre des Pins, in Sherbrooke, is organizing itself to guarantee “purchasable” housing for ordinary people by preventing speculation.
25% below market value
“Here, the principle is: we buy and sell condos 25% below the market price,” explains Louise Veronneau, 52, owner of a 5 and 1/2 and responsible, with others, for setting this “fair” selling price.
“It is not the seller who decides the price at which he sells his condo which will also be affordable for the next buyer… and so on,” she summarizes.
Louise Veronneau in her 5 and 1/2 purchased for $220,000 in 2020. Louis-Philippe Messier
Obviously, prices still go up.
“I paid $160,000 for my 3 and 1/2 five months ago, but it was the same price as a year earlier because a clause prohibits changing the price if sold before a year », Explains Luc Raîche, a 67-year-old retiree from the University of Sherbrooke.
Luc Raîche shows me around his 3 and 1/2 purchased for $160,000 five months ago. Louis-Philippe Messier
Who can acquire these properties cheaper?
“We look at the length of membership in the cooperative and the oldest members have priority,” explains Hélène Drolet, 74, the treasurer who lives in a bright 5 and 1/2 apartment for $207,000 with a view. breathtaking on a wooded area.
To be a member of an owners’ cooperative, all you need to do is pay the membership fee of around $250.
Hélène Drolet, the treasurer of the owner’s cooperative, has lived since 2020 in a bright 5 and 1/2 with a view of a wooded area for $207,000. Louis-Philippe Messier
Who pockets what?
During my visit to Havre-des-Pins, a 5 and a half purchased in 2019 for around $220,000 would soon be put on sale for around $295,000.
Of this possible capital gain of $75,000: 1) 40% goes to the seller. 2) 50% goes to Fond Coop Accès Proprio, the NPO which owns the land and which will launch other projects of this type elsewhere in Quebec. 3) 10% goes to the Havre des Pins cooperative.
“We make less money by reselling, but we got into less debt at the start! », enthuses Julie Grenier, of the Fédération des cooperatives de l’Estrie.
Condo fees include all taxes, contingency fund, internet and even cable.
80 new affordable condos will be added to Havre des Pins within two years.
In the same region, a “Petit Quartier” pilot project comprising 73 tiny houses is in its final stages.
In Waterville, also in Estrie, sixteen large cooperative condos called Des Prés are already inhabited by families.
Near the Jean-Laporte bridge in Lévis, a project of 260 cooperative condos called L’Ancrage should be delivered in the fall of 2024.
When will there be anti-speculation condos in Montreal where we sorely need them?
The Havre des Pins owners’ cooperative in Sherbrooke offers condos at a price set at 25% below the market price. Louis-Philippe Messier
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#visited #affordable #antispeculation #condos