Residential

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.

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.”

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.

The federal housing agency is predicting that home prices in the capital will come in at an average of $640,000 on the low end and $700,000 on the high end in 2023.

Builders in Ottawa launched 11,032 new housing units last year, an eight per cent increase from 2021, the national housing agency says in its latest Housing Supply Report released Wednesday.

The proposed structure – which is located north of Rideau Street about 700 metres from the Rideau LRT station and less than 200 metres from several bus stops – would have one level of underground parking with space for 40 cars and 482 bicycles. 

Ottawa-based real estate company says it does not intend to redevelop the property, which it purchased about a dozen years ago, for at least another decade.

The Canadian Real Estate Association expects the average price of a home to end the year 4.8 per cent lower than 2022, but says prices will rise by roughly the same amount in 2024.

The real estate firm reiterated its forecast from December that the aggregate price of a home in Ottawa will be two per cent higher in the fourth quarter of this year than in the final quarter of 2022.