A limited supply of homes for sale, particularly at the lower end of the market, coupled with a healthy local economy caused another jump in the average selling price of homes last month, the Ottawa Real Estate Board says.
The organization says the average home resale price rose 7.4 per cent year-over-year in April to $488,729 – an all-time high for Ottawa. Less than three years ago, in 2016, average prices were barely flirting with the $400,000 mark.
The average condo resale price, meanwhile, reached $307,659, a year-over-year increase of 14.3 per cent.
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“Our market is clearly suffering from low inventory, and we predict these conditions will persist until supply is restored,” OREB president Dwight Delahunt said in a statement. “The increase in price points are indicative that availability in the lower priced housing stock is just not there and is pushing people up to the higher end of the market.”
He added that Ottawa’s housing price points are still below the Canadian average and argued that local residents “tend to be in comfortable financial situations” thanks to the health of the local economy.
The number of homes that changed hands last month was largely flat at 2,032 properties, a year-over-year increase of 0.4 per cent.