Investment in Ottawa commercial real estate properties nearly doubled in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, with steep gains in all sectors except retail and hotels, CBRE says. The real estate brokerage said there were 126 transactions worth a total of $826.3 million involving office, industrial, retail, multi-family and hotel properties […]
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Investment in Ottawa commercial real estate properties nearly doubled in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, with steep gains in all sectors except retail and hotels, CBRE says.
The real estate brokerage said there were 126 transactions worth a total of $826.3 million involving office, industrial, retail, multi-family and hotel properties as well as industrial, commercial and institutional land in the nation’s capital between April and the end of June.
That’s an 89 per cent increase from the fewer than 100 transactions valued at $436.8 million that were recorded in Ottawa in the second quarter of 2025, CBRE said. Ottawa posted the third-highest year-over-year gain of the nine markets the company tracks, trailing only London, Ont., and the Waterloo Region.
The multi-family market led the way with total transactions of $386.6 million, up 86 per cent from a year ago.
The biggest deal of the quarter was the $72-million acquisition by Lankin Investments of the 23-storey, 258-unit Riversides apartment complex on Lycée Place from GWL Realty Advisors, which closed at the end of May. Other multi-family transactions included CLV Group’s sale of the five-storey, 31-unit Sandhurst apartment building at 240 Stewart St. to SerCo Realty Group for $7.65 million in June.
The office market was next with $126 million worth of transactions in the second quarter — an increase of more than 800 per cent from the previous year, when just $13.8 million in office property changed hands.
Most of that tally came from two major sales — the federal government’s $59-million acquisition of two buildings at 1600 and 1630 Star Top Rd. from Arnon Corp. in April and Montreal based-Brasswater’s $53-million purchase of the Carling Executive Centre from Crown Realty Partners in May.
There was also an uptick in transactions involving industrial properties, with total sales of $118.2 million in the second quarter, up from $49.5 million a year earlier. The biggest transaction was the $64.2-million acquisition by Brookfield Properties of a 45 per cent stake in the one-million-square-foot Amazon distribution centre on Boundary Road from Concert Properties.
Meanwhile, investors purchased $80 million worth of industrial, commercial and institutional land in the second quarter, up from $33.4 million in the same period last year.
Sales declined in only two sectors: retail, in which a total of $87.1 million in property changed hands, compared with $99.3 million a year earlier; and hotels, which saw transaction values fall to $28.5 million from $32.5 million.
Across the country, commercial real estate investment totalled $16.2 billion in the three-month period from April to June, a 51 per cent increase from the same quarter in 2025 and the highest quarterly total since early 2022.
Six out of nine Canadian markets posted year-over-year gains in the quarter, with Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton showing declines.
Peter Senst, president of CBRE’s Canadian capital markets division, said the country is on pace to set a new record for commercial real estate investment in 2026.
“Despite some of the negative headlines, the momentum is real and investors believe in Canada,” Senst said in a news release. “Q2 2026 was a defining quarter for Canadian commercial real estate investment with strong transaction activity in many cities and across asset classes. Global investors are increasingly viewing Canada as a market of safety and stability, and the capital flows back that up.”
