If you’ve been considering selling your house or condo in Ottawa, you’ve probably heard that in our city and others across Canada, the hot sellers’ market of the past few years has cooled and become a balanced market.
For much of the pandemic, with little inventory and interest rates at historic lows, there were a lot of buyers competing for limited properties. Bidding wars led to year-over-year increases in average sale prices that were well above average for Ottawa.
That changed after March of 2022, when mortgage rates started climbing. With higher rates, some buyers decided to hold off to see where rates and prices were going. With lower demand and fewer sales, sale prices in the second half of the year started to adjust.
In our balanced market, with many more properties available, buyers can take more time in their search, without the pressure to make instant decisions.
In December, the average sale price of a residential-class property, at $655,839, was down 7% from December of 2021. When the figures for January 2023 are compiled, expect to see another decline. The prices will be compared to January 2022, when the sellers’ market and bidding wars were at their peak.
But keep in mind that if you have owned your property for many years, as most of my long-time clients have, you will still receive a substantial profit.
I’ve been a Realtor in Ottawa for more than 30 years. My early clients have lived in their properties for almost that long. Some are considering selling to purchase a condo or move to another city. They often tell me how happy they are at what their properties are worth today over what they paid.
But even if you go back only a decade, you will see very healthy increases in average sale prices.
In 2012, the average sale price of a residential-class (non-condo) property in Ottawa was $374,224. In 2022, the average sale price had soared to $769,623. That’s a 105% increase.
If you were shopping for a condo unit in 2012, the average sale price that year was $268,108.
In 2022, it was $453,770. That’s a 69.24% increase.
To trace the changes year by year, here are the average sale prices from 2012 to 2022, provided by the Ottawa Real Estate Board. As you can see, even when there was a brief cooling in condo prices in the first few years of that decade, prices later recovered dramatically.
As the Ottawa Real Estate Board cautions, it’s important to remember that these are average sale prices, based on the total sales for each year. The increase in average prices from 2012 to 2022 does not mean that your property increased by that exact amount over that period. As with any city, prices and price increases in Ottawa vary by neighbourhood.
But the average prices are a reminder of a general rule: even with occasional years when the market cools slightly, buying a home is considered a healthy investment over the long term.
If you’re considering selling, I’d love to meet with you and fill you in on the current market and on conditions in your area of the city. I can show you the sale prices that sellers in your area have received recently, giving you an idea of where the market is today and what buyers are paying.
You can read more about me on my site, www.nancybenson.com & view my listings here. With more than three decades of experience, I know the city and have negotiated for sellers and buyers in a wide range of markets. Feel free to give me a call, at 613-747-4747.
