Journal
Notes on the Ottawa market.
Market letters, buying & selling guides, neighbourhood notes, investor and commercial analysis.
BUYING
Ottawa new builds: $130K in HST relief, most of it not law
Aug 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Sales centres are quoting $130,000 in HST relief on new builds. Only $50,000 of it is actually law, and on a $500,000 Ottawa condo the real number is $25,000. Here is what you can bank and what you cannot.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa is finishing more homes than it's starting
Aug 2, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa completed more homes in the first half of 2026 than it started. Eighty-four per cent of what's still under construction is apartments. The comfortable inventory buyers are enjoying right now was ordered years ago, and the reorder rate is falling.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Ottawa is building industrial. None of it is for you.
Aug 1, 2026 · 6 min read
Ottawa is the only industrial market in Canada building at more than 3% of inventory. The pipeline is 95.5% pre-leased before it opens. If you need 5,000 square feet, none of that helps you.
Read →INVESTOR
Ottawa's vacant unit tax: the 2026 deadline was Canada Day
Jul 31, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa taxes a home that sits empty more than 184 days a year. Do the arithmetic and the last safe day to fill a unit for 2026 was July 1. Here's what it costs.
Read →SELLING
Firm to close: where Ottawa home sales actually fall apart
Jul 30, 2026 · 5 min read
The offer firmed and everyone exhaled. That's the wrong moment to stop paying attention. Almost every deal I've seen go sideways in Ottawa went sideways after firm, not before.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Orléans has a finished train and no opening date
Jul 29, 2026 · 5 min read
Twelve and a half kilometres of track, five finished stations, and as of mid-July no timeline to open any of it. Here's what that's actually worth when you're bidding on a house in the east end.
Read →BUYING
New build in Ottawa? You have 45 days to protect your deposit
Jul 28, 2026 · 6 min read
A rule that took effect on April 1 puts a 45-day clock on every new freehold purchase agreement in Ontario. Nobody at the sales centre starts it for you, and the thing on the line is your deposit protection.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's 2021 buyers are renewing into 4% money right now
Jul 27, 2026 · 5 min read
June 2021 was the busiest month Ottawa has had this decade. Those five-year mortgages mature now, at roughly double the rate. Here's what the payment actually does, and why the appreciation people are counting on isn't there.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's benchmark home has gained 2.7% in five years
Jul 26, 2026 · 5 min read
Everyone quotes the average price. The number worth your time is two columns over, at the back of the HPI table. Ottawa's benchmark home is up 2.7% in five years, and that reframes almost every decision people are agonizing over right now.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Ottawa office vacancy fell downtown. Here's the catch.
Jul 25, 2026 · 5 min read
Downtown office vacancy dropped more than a full point last quarter. Two buildings leaving the leasing inventory did most of the work. The real news is buried further down the report.
Read →INVESTOR
Ottawa rents are softening in 2026: a reality check for small landlords
Jul 24, 2026 · 4 min read
Vacancy is up, two-thirds of buildings are offering incentives, and asking rents have been sliding since spring. The rent-always-goes-up bet just broke. Here's what that changes if you own a door or two.
Read →SELLING
The highest offer isn't always the best one: how Ottawa sellers should read what's on the table
Jul 23, 2026 · 4 min read
Two offers on the same townhouse, $9,000 apart. My clients took the lower one and never regretted it. In a one-offer-at-a-time market, the number on page one is the least informative thing in the document. Here's how to read the rest.
Read →BUYING
Price is the last lever: an Ottawa buyer's negotiation playbook
Jul 21, 2026 · 5 min read
Everyone thinks negotiating means grinding the price. In a market where correctly priced homes still fetch 98.5% of ask, price is the last lever. Here's where the real negotiation happens, segment by segment.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
The national market just turned a corner. Ottawa didn't need one.
Jul 20, 2026 · 4 min read
CREA's June release landed the same morning as the Bank's hold and got buried. National sales are climbing and prices have stopped falling. Ottawa never fell. Here's what the gap between those two facts means for our fall market.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
After the hold: the seven-week window that sets up Ottawa's fall market
Jul 19, 2026 · 4 min read
The Bank held at 2.25% on Wednesday, its sixth straight pass. Inside the release: the first mildly encouraging thing the Bank has said about housing in a while, and a calendar quirk that gives Ottawa buyers and sellers a seven-week head start on the fall market.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Ottawa's Commercial Market Is Splitting in Two: Soft Office, Tight Industrial, and Where the Real Deals Are
Jul 18, 2026 · 5 min read
The federal plan to shed half its office space collided with a four-day return-to-office mandate, and Ottawa's commercial market is caught in the whiplash. Office tenants suddenly have leverage. Industrial tenants have the opposite problem.
Read →INVESTOR
The fourplex that isn't: Ottawa's four-unit zoning is still under appeal
Jul 17, 2026 · 5 min read
Everyone is repeating the line about four units on every serviced lot. The provision is sitting at the Ontario Land Tribunal and is not in force. Here's what you can actually build, and what that means if you already paid a fourplex premium for the land.
Read →SELLING
Your listing isn't selling. In a 22-day market, that's a price problem.
Jul 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa's median days on market in June was 22 days, and the sale-to-list ratio held at 98.5%, unchanged from last year. Correctly priced homes are still clearing in three weeks. So if yours is sitting at day 40, you're not waiting out a slow market. You're outside it. Here's what to actually do about it.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Kanata North is bigger than I told you in May
Jul 15, 2026 · 5 min read
In May I wrote that Kanata North employs roughly 24,000 people. The KNBA's new report says 30,978 direct jobs and $17.9 billion in output. Meanwhile Ottawa Suburb West is quietly the tightest submarket in the city. Here's what connects the two.
Read →BUYING
Buying your first Ottawa condo in 2026: the soft market and the document that decides it
Jul 14, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa's condo segment is the softest in the city right now, and for once that is the buyer's advantage rather than a warning. Apartments are off about 6% year over year with 5.3 months of supply, the most buyer-friendly reading in Ottawa. Here is how to shop your first one, and why the status certificate is the document that actually decides the deal.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's June Market: One Average Price, Three Different Stories
Jul 13, 2026 · 4 min read
The average sale price ticked up in June. The market underneath it did not. A look at Ottawa's three-speed market before Wednesday's Bank of Canada decision.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
What Wednesday's rate decision actually does to your Ottawa mortgage
Jul 12, 2026 · 4 min read
The Bank holds again Wednesday, and most buyers are watching the wrong number. Your fixed rate is set in the bond market, not the Bank's boardroom. Here's what the July 15 decision actually changes for Ottawa, and what it doesn't.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Why RTO4 could put a floor under Ottawa's office vacancy
Jul 11, 2026 · 4 min read
For five years the federal government did everything it could to shed office space in Ottawa. Then RTO4 landed on July 6, and the demand math flipped overnight.
Read →INVESTOR
Ottawa student rentals in 2026: the per-door math and the by-law trap
Jul 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Every July a client sends me a five bedroom house near uOttawa and a spreadsheet: five rooms, $800 each, a cap rate that looks too good. The spreadsheet is usually where the trouble starts. Here's the real math.
Read →SELLING
The sale-to-list ratio: how to actually price your Ottawa home
Jul 9, 2026 · 4 min read
Sellers obsess over the average sale price. The number that should actually set your list price is the sale-to-list ratio, and in June it held at 98.5% across Ottawa. That citywide figure hides three very different markets. Here's how to use it to price your home.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Why the Glebe is up 10.3% while Ottawa cools
Jul 8, 2026 · 5 min read
OREB says stop reading citywide headlines and look local. The Glebe proves the point: it's up 10.3% year over year while Ottawa's benchmark slipped. Here's what's really happening in Ottawa's canal-side classic in 2026.
Read →BUYING
The first-time buyer GST rebate: what it's worth in Ottawa
Jul 7, 2026 · 5 min read
The feds made the GST disappear on new homes for first-time buyers, up to $50,000 back. In Ottawa, where most new-build product sits under $1 million, that's usually the full ride. The catch: it does nothing for resale.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Where Ottawa's Market Sits Before the July 15 Rate Decision
Jul 6, 2026 · 5 min read
Sales are down year over year, inventory is up, and single-family homes are holding while condos soften. With the Bank of Canada set to decide on July 15, here's an honest read on where Ottawa's market actually sits.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's sales-to-new-listings ratio — the summer signal to watch
Jul 5, 2026 · 5 min read
Everyone quotes Ottawa's average sale price. The sales-to-new-listings ratio does more forecasting work — and Ottawa's ~48% reading hides two very different sub-markets.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
What's selling fast in Ottawa this July, what's sitting stale
Jul 5, 2026 · 5 min read
Watch the OREB headline and you get the tidy version. Sit in the actual pipeline this July and you see two Ottawa markets — one clearing in two weeks, one sitting 60 days.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Office-to-residential conversions: can they fix downtown Ottawa?
Jul 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa is the only Canadian office market still moving the wrong way, and the federal government is about to hand back more space. Conversions are everyone's favourite fix. Here's the actual math.
Read →INVESTOR
The 2.1% problem: what Ottawa landlords can charge in 2026
Jul 3, 2026 · 4 min read
Ontario capped 2026 rent increases at 2.1%, the lowest in four years. Meanwhile, Ottawa asking rents have been sliding since mid-2025. Here's the landlord math that actually matters.
Read →SELLING
Selling your Ottawa home in mid-summer: the July playbook
Jul 2, 2026 · 5 min read
Conventional wisdom says don't list in July. Mostly right, sometimes expensively wrong. Here's who should sell into Ottawa's mid-summer market, who should wait for September, and the playbook if you can't wait.
Read →BUYING
Stacking the FHSA and HBP for your Ottawa down payment
Jun 30, 2026 · 5 min read
The FHSA and HBP aren't either-or. Stacked, an Ottawa couple can assemble up to $200,000 of tax-advantaged down payment, and the 2026 repayment rules just got friendlier. Here's the playbook.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's mid-2026 market: what to watch into summer
Jun 29, 2026 · 5 min read
We're halfway through 2026 and the year-to-date numbers tell a cleaner story than any single month. Fewer sales, more inventory, prices holding. Here's what that means heading into summer.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa housing 2026: a mid-year report card
Jun 28, 2026 · 4 min read
We're at the halfway mark of 2026. Prices are roughly flat, sales are softer, and inventory is comfortable. Here's the honest scorecard and what I'm watching into the back half of the year.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Tenant inducements: the hidden math in Ottawa leases
Jun 27, 2026 · 5 min read
The face rent on a commercial lease is the number that tells you the least. In a 14.3% vacancy office market, the inducements are where the real negotiation lives.
Read →INVESTOR
Ottawa condo investing in 2026: a reality check
Jun 26, 2026 · 5 min read
The condo is the property most often pitched to first-time Ottawa investors, and the one I most often talk people out of. Here's the 2026 math, with a worked cash-flow example.
Read →SELLING
Selling a tenant-occupied home in Ontario: the 2026 rules
Jun 25, 2026 · 5 min read
Most owners think a tenant kills the sale. It doesn't, but the rules changed in late 2025. Here's how selling a tenant-occupied Ottawa home actually works in 2026, and what it costs.
Read →COMMERCIAL
Retail vs office vs industrial: which Ottawa segment is moving
Jun 22, 2026 · 4 min read
If you have capital to deploy into Ottawa commercial real estate in 2026, the segment choice matters more than the property choice. Here's the head-to-head comparison I walk investor clients through.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa real estate market update — Q2 2026
Jun 18, 2026 · 3 min read
If you've been refreshing OREB releases the way I do, the headline of Q2 2026 is simple: balanced, not boring. May sales hit 1,616 units across the OREB territory, down 10.6% from a year earlier, while the average sale price came in at $721…
Read →COMMERCIAL
Ottawa commercial market overview Q2 2026
Jun 17, 2026 · 3 min read
Ottawa's commercial real estate market in 2026 isn't one market — it's three, moving in three different directions. Office is challenged. Industrial is tight. Retail is rebounding from a long valley.
Read →SELLING
Ontario seller disclosure rules every owner should know
Jun 15, 2026 · 4 min read
Ontario's seller disclosure rules are not what most homeowners think they are. There's no general "duty to disclose everything" — but there are specific things you absolutely must disclose, and lying or hiding them creates liability that ca…
Read →MARKET UPDATES
How Bank of Canada rate moves are shaping Ottawa real estate
Jun 12, 2026 · 3 min read
The Bank of Canada held the overnight rate at 2.25% on June 10, 2026. That's the fifth consecutive hold — January, March, April, and now June. The Bank Rate sits at 2.5%, deposit rate at 2.20%.
Read →INVESTOR
Multi-unit conversions: the basement secondary suite math
Jun 11, 2026 · 4 min read
The strongest leverage available to small-scale real estate investors in Ottawa right now is the legal basement secondary suite.
Read →BUYING
Home inspection: the 12 things to look for in Ottawa homes
Jun 9, 2026 · 3 min read
Ottawa's housing stock spans pre-Confederation stone homes in the village of Manotick, post-war bungalows in Carlington, 1980s vinyl-sided detached in Kanata, and brand-new builds in Riverside South.
Read →SELLING
Selling in winter vs spring in Ottawa: trade-offs
Jun 6, 2026 · 3 min read
Every November I get the same question: "Should we list now or wait until spring?" The answer is more nuanced than the conventional wisdom that "spring is always best."
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Manotick neighbourhood guide: village living on the Rideau
Jun 4, 2026 · 3 min read
Manotick is a village of about 5,500 within the City of Ottawa, located 30 minutes south of downtown along the Rideau River. The neighbourhood is defined by the village core, the river, and the newer Mahogany community to the south.
Read →BUYING
Pre-approval vs pre-qualification: what Ottawa lenders actually mean
Jun 2, 2026 · 3 min read
I had a client lose a Westboro semi last month because they brought a "pre-approval" to the offer table that was actually a pre-qualification.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Hintonburg neighbourhood guide: art, infill, and Wellington West
Jun 1, 2026 · 3 min read
If Westboro is what Hintonburg will be in ten years, Hintonburg in 2026 is the most interesting transitional neighbourhood in the city.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Old Ottawa South neighbourhood guide: Bank, Brewer, and Carleton
May 29, 2026 · 3 min read
Old Ottawa South sits south of The Glebe, bordered by the Rideau River on three sides. The neighbourhood is centred on the Bank Street south commercial strip, anchored by Hopewell Avenue Public School and Brewer Park, and shaped by Carleton…
Read →INVESTOR
Short-term rental rules in Ottawa: what's legal, what isn't
May 27, 2026 · 4 min read
The City of Ottawa's Short-Term Rental By-law (By-law No. 2021-104) substantially restricted who can run an Airbnb or VRBO in Ottawa. Many "investment" properties marketed as STR opportunities in 2026 are not actually legal.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
The Glebe neighbourhood guide: Edwardian homes and Lansdowne
May 25, 2026 · 3 min read
The Glebe is Ottawa's longest-running premium walkable neighbourhood. Bank Street is the spine, Lansdowne is the anchor, the Rideau Canal forms the eastern boundary, and the housing stock is dominated by Edwardian and early-20th-century det…
Read →MARKET UPDATES
5-year price trends across Ottawa neighbourhoods
May 22, 2026 · 2 min read
Looking back from June 2026, Ottawa real estate has had three distinct chapters since 2021: the COVID-era surge through early 2022, the 2022–2024 rate shock and correction, and the 2025–2026 plateau.
Read →BUYING
Closing costs in Ontario explained, line by line
May 20, 2026 · 3 min read
If you're buying in Ottawa, "closing costs" is the line that ambushes more first-time buyers than any other. Let me walk through every cost, what it actually pays for, and what you'll see on a $700,000 purchase.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Westboro neighbourhood guide: urbanist living west of Tunney's
May 19, 2026 · 3 min read
Westboro has become the model of Ottawa's urbanist housing pivot. Wellington West is a genuine walkable commercial strip, Confederation Line LRT puts the area 12 minutes from downtown, and infill density has reshaped what the housing stock…
Read →SELLING
Pricing strategy in a shifting market
May 18, 2026 · 3 min read
Pricing a home isn't about what you want for it. It's a tactical decision about how to use the asking price to drive the outcome. In Ottawa's 2026 balanced market, the wrong strategy can cost you 5% or more on final sale price.
Read →BUYING
How much home can you afford in Ottawa in 2026?
May 15, 2026 · 3 min read
The affordability question gets asked at every coffee, and the answer is always: it depends. But the inputs are not mysterious. Let me walk through how an Ottawa lender actually decides what you can borrow in 2026, with real numbers.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Barrhaven neighbourhood guide: Ottawa's south-end suburb
May 13, 2026 · 3 min read
Barrhaven now houses about 95,000 people and continues to expand south and west. It's Ottawa's quintessential family suburb — newer construction, large lots in some pockets, strong schools, and the south-end commute that LRT Stage 2 will ev…
Read →INVESTOR
ROI on Ottawa rentals in 2026: where the cap rates are
May 11, 2026 · 4 min read
Most "investment property" content on the internet sells the dream. Let me walk through the actual cap rates I'm seeing on Ottawa deals in 2026, which property types work and which don't, and where buyers should focus.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Orleans neighbourhood guide: the francophone east end
May 10, 2026 · 3 min read
Orleans is Ottawa's largest east-end community, with a population around 110,000 and a distinct francophone heritage. It's been a steady family suburb for decades, and the 2026 market continues to reward that consistency.
Read →BUYING
First-time home buyer's complete guide to Ottawa
May 8, 2026 · 3 min read
Buying your first home in Ottawa in 2026 is easier than it was in 2022 in some ways — there's actual inventory, conditions are back, and rates have stabilized — and harder in others, because the qualifying rate still floors around 6%.
Read →SELLING
Preparing your Ottawa home for sale: a 30-day checklist
May 6, 2026 · 3 min read
Selling well in Ottawa in 2026 is mostly preparation. Pricing matters, marketing matters, but the homes that sell quickly and over ask are the ones the seller spent four weeks getting ready. Here's the schedule I use with clients.
Read →NEIGHBOURHOODS
Kanata neighbourhood guide: tech, families, and value
May 5, 2026 · 2 min read
Kanata isn't a single neighbourhood — it's a former municipality of around 110,000 people, spanning from Beaverbrook in the north to Bridlewood and Glen Cairn in the south. Each pocket has a distinct character and price band.
Read →MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa's spring 2026 market: what buyers and sellers need to know
May 4, 2026 · 2 min read
Every spring, the question I get most is some version of "is this the year it goes nuts again?" The honest answer for 2026 is no, and that's actually good news for almost everyone involved.
Read →