People want to know: Is now still a good time to sell?  Are bidding wars still happening?  Should I wait to buy a house?

The Ottawa market has been unlike anything in recent history for the last two years and people have questions.  Ottawa is typically a very stable market with a consistent year over year growth.  

When the pandemic started everyone assumed that the market would be negatively affected, people would lose jobs and real estate would stall or bottom out.  Instead, as more and more people were relegated to working from home they realized just how important their primary living space had become.  Instead of spending the majority of their time either at work, socializing out on the town, or sleeping which resulted in only a few waking hours in their homes, they suddenly were spending 100% of their time in their homes.  

With this change in how people spent their waking hours, suddenly a place to sleep was no longer enough.  Being able to work from home also opened the options to living much further away from the downtown core as people were no longer concerned about their commute.  As priorities changed, properties with larger footprints, larger yards and more space became in heavy demand.  With so many buyers fighting over the small number of properties on the market, prices skyrocketed and the value of some properties almost doubled. 

If you look at the chart in the photo above, it is a graph of the Housing Price Index for the city of Ottawa from January 2019 up until end of October of 2021.  As you can see, during the pandemic, the average HPI for Ottawa rose significantly however house prices since June of 2021 have actually been declining with a slight up-tick again in October.  Historically, the Ottawa market has been a place of stability and rarely has a decrease in house values however given the bloated selling prices of homes over the last twenty months, it is of no surprise that buyers needed a break from bidding wars and the disappointment of losing out on house after house.  

With this cooling off period the question comes up: should I still sell now?  In my opinion the answer is still yes. Even though prices levelled off a bit in September, houses are still selling for much much higher than they should have been prior to the unheard of increases of the last two years.  Should I buy a house now or should I wait?  Without being able to predict the future, this could be a great opportunity for a home buyer to take advantage of this slightly quieter moment in the market allowing them to potentially avoid being in a bidding war and allowing for conditions to be part of their offer.

Every person’s situation is a little different and if you want more guidance just give us a Call.

Joseph Pekelsky – Broker of Record at Red Moose Realty, Ottawa