The Ottawa real estate market had its busiest July since the pandemic, signalling demand for homes in the capital remains steady even as some other Ontario cities are seeing a slowdown in sales activity, the Ottawa Real Estate Board says. OREB said home sales rose 4.9 per cent in July compared with a year earlier […]
The Ottawa real estate market had its busiest July since the pandemic, signalling demand for homes in the capital remains steady even as some other Ontario cities are seeing a slowdown in sales activity, the Ottawa Real Estate Board says.
OREB said home sales rose 4.9 per cent in July compared with a year earlier as 1,318 properties changed hands. It was the highest number of transactions in the month since 2021, when 1,508 homes were sold.
“While we’ve seen demand may be softening in the condo market, especially in the downtown core, as a whole, Ottawa’s real estate market continues to stand out for its resilience and stability," OREB president Paul Czan said in a statement.
The average selling price rose 2.2 per cent compared with a year earlier to $695,209, while the composite benchmark price, which is meant to represent the typical home, was $633,100 in June, up 1.9 per cent year-over-year.
The benchmark price for single-family homes was $704,800, a two per cent increase from a year earlier, while the benchmark price for a townhouse/row unit rose 8.3 per cent to $468,000.
Apartments were the only housing class to see a decline in their benchmark price, which fell 1.6 per cent to $411,900.
"With steady demand, balanced inventory, and moderate price growth, our fundamentals remain strong,” Czan said.
Still, the board said it is “keeping a close eye on changing dynamics” in other Ontario markets that are seeing “more pronounced slowdowns” as sales decline and inventory levels rise.
“Historically, the perception is that Ottawa has been somewhat insulated from such extremes, due in part to its stable employment base and consistent population growth, but it is not entirely immune,” it said in a news release last week, adding “broader provincial or national trends have the potential to ripple through the local market over time.”
OREB said 2,549 new listings were added to the city’s inventory last month, an 11.7 per cent increase compared with July 2024.
The number of active listings reached 4,205 last month, up 14 per cent from last year and nearly 24 per cent above the five-year average for July.
OREB said the rise in active listings “may serve as an early indicator of rising supply pressure,” adding it is “certainly a trend worth monitoring.”
At the same time, however, the sales-to-new-listings ratio dropped to 51.7 per cent from 55.1 per cent a year earlier, which the board called “a mixed signal that may indicate demand is currently keeping pace with supply.”
Single-family home sales rose three per cent year-over-year to 674 last month, while the number of townhomes changing hands jumped 22 per cent to 436.
Meanwhile, 181 condo apartments were sold in July, a 23 per cent drop from a year earlier. 
