Real Estate

National home sales jumped by 11.3 per cent between March and April as the real estate market picked up again, but supply remained at a 20 year-low, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday.

The national housing agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts for the fourth month of the year was 16,673 units, up six per cent from 15,715 in March.

Pro athletes and senior executives trying to buy a home in Ottawa are among those being affected by the federal government's foreign buyer ban, realtors say. 

Minto Apartment REIT is refinancing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of mortgages as rising interest rates jack up the costs of servicing its debt and eat into its cash flow, the company said this week.

True North Commercial REIT said in financial filings this week it has agreed to sell the 11-storey Narono Building at 360 Laurier Ave. W. to an unnamed buyer for about $17.5 million.

InterRent REIT says occupancy at the Slayte, the 11-storey rental complex at 473 Albert St. it is developing in conjunction with sister company CLV Group, is “quickly approaching” the 50 per cent mark “despite lease-up having mainly occurred during the weaker winter rental months.”

In an email to OBJ on Monday, Group Germain’s vice-president of operations, Hugo Germain, said the Quebec-based hotel chain is still working with the Ottawa International Airport Authority on a proposal to build a 180-room Alt Hotel that would be attached to the airport terminal.

Ottawa house prices have jumped nearly 14 per cent since the end of 2022, pushing the city back into “seller’s market territory,” the president of the Ottawa Real Estate Board said Wednesday.

Brokers Lindsay Hockey and Oliver Kershaw have taken their long-running partnership to Colliers International, joining the city’s second-largest commercial brokerage after a seven-year stint at Avison Young.