The Ottawa Real Estate Board recently released the statistics for the sales within the board in March 2020. Here is an overview:
The total number of residential & condo properties sold in March 2020 (1,507) was 1.2% higher than March 2019 (1,507). The moving 5-year average for number of residential sales in March is 1,465.
The Ottawa Real Estate Board recently released the statistics for the sales within the board in February 2020. Here is an overview:
The number of homes sold in February 2020 (1,141) was 13.9% higher than February 2019 (1,002). The moving 5-year average for number of sales in February is 1,006.
The number of homes sold in January 2020 (780) were slightly less than January 2019 (817) — about 4.5% less. That being said, we were still slightly over the moving 5-year average of 713. See video and additional commentary and statistics below.
In the video and blog below, Dan gives his perspective on current happenings in Ottawa Real Estate. There is still a historic low inventory of house listings. The few new listings are often sold over asking price with multiple offers.
Ottawa Real Estate Statistics for November 2019 – Members of the Ottawa Real Estate Board sold 1,288 residential properties in November through the Board’s Multiple Listing Service® System, compared with 1,161 in November 2018, an increase of 10.9 per cent. November’s sales included 958 in the residential-property class, up 10.5 per cent from a year ago, and 330 in the condominium-property category, an increase of 12.2 per cent from November 2018. The five-year average for November unit sales is 1,133.
In January 2001 my wife and I moved back to the Ottawa area after 4 years abroad
Are you considering a move to or within Ottawa? Is an Ottawa Urban Neighbourhood being considered? Want to walk to work or school? Ottawa used to be a small city with a well defined core of urban neighbourhoods. Certainly Centretown, the Golden Triangle, the Glebe, Lowertown and Sandy Hill would have been considered “urban” for the last 60 to 100 plus years.
According to CMHC-SCHL the Government of Canada just released several tools and resources to help with the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program.
These include:
1/ the product highlight sheet (PDF)
2/ the online calculator on the government website
3/ all about the program on the government website
4/ all about the process on an awkward government website, that may or may not work for you
Possibly, the most important question is how the “loan” is paid back. According to a quick review of provided info, you can pay back the full loan if you want at any time. If you sell the home you need to pay back as a percentage of the sale price.
For example, you “borrowed” 10% of value of a new home. When you sell you must pay the government of Canada 10% of the sale price, whether value went up or down.
For resale (not new) homes the max is 5% of value.
Why not borrow the full amount you can, and then if value goes up a lot, pay off the full loan just prior to selling? Not yet clear how this would be handled.
I expect there will be MANY more questions about the process and requirements. It really doesn’t seem like the government thought this program through…but it does line up nicely for a fall election.
There is no doubt that first time buyers are finding it MUCH harder to buy a home in the Ottawa market. Hopefully this program will help in a meaningful way.
Buying a home may initially seem daunting but following these steps can help to simplify the process. I see many first time buyers unsure of how to begin searching for a home and these are the tips I give them.