Ottawa housing 2026: a mid-year report card

The halftime score for Ottawa real estate

We're past the midpoint of 2026, and this is the time of year I stop reacting to monthly noise and ask a simpler question: where does the Ottawa market actually sit versus where everyone thought it would six months ago? The short version is that 2026 has been the year of "boringly fine." Prices held, sales softened, inventory stayed comfortable, and the Bank of Canada did almost nothing. If you were waiting for a crash or a boom to make your decision, neither one showed up.

Here's the report card, line by line.

Price: flat, with a B

The May OREB numbers put the average Ottawa sale price at $721,270, down about 1.0% from a year ago. Break that out by type and the story sharpens: single-family detached averaged roughly $869K (essentially flat at -0.2%), townhouses around $564K (down about 1%), and apartment-style condos around $433K, down a steep 12% year over year.

That condo number is the one sellers keep arguing with me about, and the data doesn't care. Entry-level and investor condos downtown are the soft spot of this market. Detached homes in good school zones are basically holding their value. If you own a three-bed detached in Barrhaven or Orleans, your equity is fine. If you own a one-bed investor condo on Carling, you're competing with a stack of similar units and the price reflects it.

Grade: B. Flat is not exciting, but flat in a year a lot of forecasters predicted a correction is a solid result.

Sales volume: softer, with a C+

May saw 1,616 sales across the OREB territory, down 10.6% from a year earlier. That's the headline that sounds scary until you put it next to the price line. Volumes are down, but prices held. That combination tells you this isn't distress selling. It's buyers taking their time because they can, not because they're being forced out.

The encouraging wrinkle: sales jumped 21% from April to May. The spring market showed up, just later and calmer than the frenzied springs of 2021 and 2022. Buyers are transacting. They're just not panicking, and frankly neither should you.

Grade: C+. Volume is the weakest line on the card, but it's soft demand, not broken demand.

Inventory: balanced, with an A-

Months of inventory sat at 3.0 in May, with a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 48.2%. In Ottawa, anything under four months still leans slightly toward sellers, so we're in genuinely balanced territory with a faint seller tilt. This is the healthiest part of the whole picture.

What balance means in practice: buyers get to use conditions again, financing and inspection clauses are normal, and nobody has to write a condition-free offer on a Tuesday night to win. Sellers still transact at fair value if they price honestly. This is what a functioning market looks like, and we haven't had one this calm in five years.

Grade: A-. If every year looked like this, my job would be a lot less dramatic and a lot more useful.

Rates: held, with a B+

The Bank of Canada held the overnight rate at 2.25% on June 10, the fifth consecutive hold. Fixed mortgage rates have stayed in the high-3s to low-4s for most of the year, which is the real reason prices didn't break. Stable payments keep buyers in the market.

The next decision is July 15, and the consensus is another hold. The C.D. Howe Institute's monetary policy council voted unanimously to hold for July, and bond markets are pricing almost no chance of a change. Some forecasters think the next actual move could even be a small hike a year out rather than a cut, which is worth sitting with if you've been waiting for rates to fall before you buy. The cut may not be coming.

Grade: B+. Stability did its job. Don't bank on cheaper money in the back half of the year.

What I'm watching into the second half

Three things will shape the rest of 2026 in Ottawa.

First, the July and August slowdown. Cottage season pulls buyers out of town and listing traffic drops. If you're selling family suburban product and you're not already live, you may be better off waiting for the September wave than fighting the summer quiet.

Second, the condo overhang. Until that 12% gap closes, downtown investor condos stay the weakest segment. If you're a buyer with patience, that's where the negotiating room is. If you're a seller, price to the comps that actually sold, not the ones still sitting.

Third, the federal return-to-office pull. It's been a quiet tailwind for urban core product all year, and I don't see it reversing. Centretown, Hintonburg, Westboro, and Old Ottawa South have a slightly stronger buyer pool than the raw averages suggest.

The bottom line at the halfway mark

If you've been sitting on the fence waiting for a clear signal, here it is: the signal is that there's no signal. Prices are flat, rates are stable, inventory is balanced, and the second half of 2026 is most likely to look a lot like the first. That's not a reason to wait. It's a reason to make your move on the merits of your own situation, because the macro environment isn't going to make the decision easier or harder than it is right now.

Want a read on where your specific home or target neighbourhood lands on this report card? I'd rather spend fifteen minutes giving you a straight answer than send you another market average. Call or text me at 613-262-6545, or email fil@613realtor.ca.