Ottawa Real Estate Commentary January 2019
The Ottawa Real Estate market was somewhat crazy at times in 2018. There were many sales that went considerably over asking. Will 2019 be the same? Have we reached the pinnacle of pricing? This video has my commentary for Ottawa Real Estate in 2018 and going forward in 2019:
2018 was a bit a crazy year in the Ottawa Real Estate market. What I tell my clients is that I have never seen anything like it in the last 16 years as a realtor and as a home buyer prior to that.
What might have brought about the very high sale prices in cases of multiple offers?
Prior to 2018 I had only noticed one or two (at most) residential homes sell at more than $100,000 over asking, and most likely the home was listed much too low.
In 2018 it was almost commonplace for good homes, mostly in the core, to go WELL ABOVE asking.
Was it out of towners coming to Ottawa with extra money? Most likely that did happen with residential homes, but it does not explain the full effect. Maybe some of the news we continually see about the real estate markets in Toronto and Vancouver have effected the attitude of Ottawa buyers?
Regarding investment properties, I fully believe that we have had, and will continue to have investors from out of town attracted to the slightly higher cap rates. Additionally, Ottawa has a very stable workforce with the government as well as high tech.
Buying an investment property can certainly be a challenge for a younger or first time “landlord”, but despite the difficulty, Ottawa is much more reachable than many other cities in Canada.
The lowering cap rates have increased the prices of investment properties for potential sellers…it may make sense to sell soon if you have owned property for a while and are considering other opportunities (upgrade?).
So, November and December are usually good month’s to buy, IF you can find the right property. The problem is that there are not many new listings and the ones available are not usually that interesting until the seller brings their asking price to a reasonable point. There is usually a very good reason why a home/condo/investment property has not sold for a few months.
The end of 2018 didn’t seem to have the opportunities seen in other years. There were still MANY home buyers left that were unable to find the right home during the busier part of the year, so they ended up perhaps adjusting their requirements (price, location, size, etc.) to be able to buy some of the unsold homes in November and December.
I truly believe that there are still active buyers from 2018 that have not yet purchased. They will add to the active buyers for 2019 and I fully expect — with all else being equal — that we will have a very busy spring/summer market in the Ottawa area.
Be sure to checkout my commentary on condos as well.
Dan Moloughney, B.Eng.
Broker of Record, Ottawa Urban Realty Inc.