Journal
Notes on the Ottawa market.
Market letters, buying & selling guides, neighbourhood notes, investor and commercial analysis.
MARKET UPDATES
Ottawa needs to triple its housing starts. Toronto needs 50%.
Sep 14, 2026 · 5 min read
CMHC's Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report landed Thursday. Ottawa needs 22,000 to 27,000 more housing starts a year. That shortfall is bigger than Toronto's, and it widened while Toronto's shrank.
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Ottawa Centre has 7 months of inventory. Suburb West has 3.6.
Sep 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa's August release reads balanced citywide: 47.3 per cent, 4.5 months of inventory. Split it into the six submarkets OREB reports and the spread is 3.4 months. Two of the six are buyers' markets.
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Ottawa sold 1,002 homes in August. About 1,300 listings quit.
Sep 6, 2026 · 5 min read
OREB's August release: 1,002 sales, the lowest August since 2016. Rebuild the inventory math and about 1,300 listings left unsold, the second straight month exits beat sales. This time OREB said so too.
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Ottawa's arrears are forecast to fall. Toronto's climb 30%.
Aug 31, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa's supply is 44.5% above normal, which sounds like distress until you read the arrears table. CMHC has Ottawa's delinquency rate falling to 0.13% by late 2026, the biggest drop of eight major markets.
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Ontario's inflation is 2.0%. The rate is set for Canada's 3.0%
Aug 30, 2026 · 5 min read
Canada's July inflation came in at 3.0% and that is a gasoline number. Ontario printed 2.0%, the lowest in the country, dragged down by falling housing costs. Wednesday's rate ignores the difference.
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Ottawa needs a 9% autumn just to break even on 2026
Aug 24, 2026 · 5 min read
OREB's July headline was the best July in five years. The line underneath says Ottawa is 5.2% behind on the year, and closing that gap needs a 9% autumn five months running.
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Canada's supply is 1.5% above normal. Ottawa's is 44.5%.
Aug 23, 2026 · 6 min read
CREA's July release says national supply is 1.5% above its long run normal. OREB says Ottawa is 44.5% above. Same month, same measure. Canada took the price cut and we took the inventory instead.
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More Ottawa listings quit the market in July than sold in it
Aug 17, 2026 · 5 min read
OREB's July ratio improved to 52.4% and the headlines called it better absorption. Rebuild it from the published numbers and about 1,500 Ottawa listings left the market without selling, more than actually sold.
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3.5 months of inventory is tight for Canada. Not for Ottawa.
Aug 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Ottawa has less inventory than Canada and far more than it should. Measured against our own long-run normal we are 46% oversupplied, and the pile is leftover spring listings that never cleared.
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The rate cut Ottawa buyers are waiting for isn't coming
Aug 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Markets are no longer pricing a Bank of Canada cut. They're pricing a hike. Here's what a quarter point is actually worth on an Ottawa mortgage, and why the price move already on the table beats it.
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Ottawa townhouses: tightest inventory, weakest prices
Aug 9, 2026 · 5 min read
Townhouses now carry less inventory than detached homes in Ottawa and the worst price performance in the city. That combination is not a tightening market. It's withdrawn listings waiting for September.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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%.
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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.
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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.
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