Low Inventory Could Leave Some Buyers Out in the Cold

Members of the Ottawa Real Estate board sold 712 residential properties in January through the Board's Multiple Listing Service System, compared with 664 in January 2017, an increase for 7.2 percent. The five-year average for January sales is 638.

While January is typically the month we see the lowest number of listings come onto the market, the number for this month are very low. The five-year average for new listings in January is 1,396 for residential and 500 condominiums.  January 2018's listings were at 994 and 406 respectively.

We saw this trend throughout 2017, and the result is our resale market is being challenged by decreasing supply in both residential and condo markets. Furthermore, as the supply continues to be reduced, it is my opinion that this will tend to put an upward pressure on prices.

The average sale price of a residential-class property sold in January in the Ottawa area was $427,487, an increase of 8.8 percent over January 2017. The average sale price for a condominium-class property was $263,744, a decrease of 8.6 percent from January 2017.

Sales in the residential property class this month were on par with January 2017 with a minor decrease of 1.1 percent. Unit sales in the condo market, however, have seen an increase of 45 percent from 119 units sold in January 2017 to 173 units in January 2018.