Residential

Immigration-fuelled population growth and rising interest rates that have driven up the cost of buying a home helped boost Minto Apartment REIT’s bottom line in the second quarter.

Ottawa-based real estate investment trust said Tuesday its funds from operations rose 6.3 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2021 to $18.9 million.

Sales worth $1 million or more now account for nearly one in five Ottawa residential transactions – up from less than five per cent just two years ago, Engel & Volkers says.

While construction slowed down on the Gatineau side of the Ottawa River, with the number of new starts falling to 132 from 151 the previous June, builders in Ottawa picked up the pace.

The association revealed Friday that June home sales amounted to 48,176, a 24 per cent drop from 63,280 during the same month last year.

Firm says it now expects the aggregate price of a home in Ottawa will be up 10 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared with a year earlier, down from its previous forecast of 13 per cent.

Members of the Ottawa Real Estate Board sold 1,508 residential properties last month, a drop of nearly 30 per cent from June 2021.

Federal housing agency says growth was driven by increases in both the value and volume of uninsured mortgages for property buying and refinancings.

Builder known for its environmentally friendly projects wants to construct three buildings with a total of 510 residential suites near the northwest corner of Richmond Road and the SJAM Parkway. 

Achieving housing affordability for everyone in Canada will require developers to become more productive and make full use of land holdings to build more housing, CMHC says.