Real Estate

Minto Apartment REIT will not exercise its option to purchase a major rental development in the Glebe from sister company Minto Properties because rising interest rates have made the cost of financing the deal too expensive, the Ottawa-based REIT said this week.

Home sales in the capital rose six per cent last month from May 2022, the Ottawa Real Estate Board reported this week – and realtors say the bidding wars that raged during the market’s peak in late 2021 and early 2022 are back as a lack of supply continues to limit buyers’ options.

Nine in 10 Canadian construction companies say they are dealing with a shortage of skilled labour or trades and may need to consider alternatives, such as prefabrication and modularization or innovative new technology.

The Gatineau-based developer behind a new apartment complex in Chinatown wants to build a nine-storey mixed-use building on a Centretown property that’s now occupied by a medical office.

The head of the city’s largest property management firm says the federal government needs to be “much more transparent” about what it plans to do with its downtown office footprint so landlords can start preparing now for future vacancies.

A new report suggests Ottawa’s industrial market “may have reached a peak” after a pandemic-fuelled e-commerce boom triggered unprecedented demand for warehouse space, but it says rents are still expected to rise amid an ongoing supply shortage.

The sale of aging federal government buildings in Ottawa could still be “several years” away, Public Services and Procurement Canada says, while a Crown corporation that redevelops surplus federal properties says it will look into whether any of the sites on the disposal list could be financially viable as residential conversions.

The Altea wellness and social club that is moving into the former Canadian Tire store on Carling Avenue could be the first of many businesses opting for a location near but not in the downtown core, market watchers say.

The federal government this week released a list of several properties that it is planning to dispose of in the National Capital Region.