Ottawa new home sales off to strong start in 2016
Ottawa new home sales off to strong start in 2016
The new home builders in Ottawa are pleased with how the market has performed in January 2016. Normally the cold in the first month of the year, keeps the sales of homes down, which is still the case with resale of properties in Ottawa but that is not the case with new home sales. New home sales in Ottawa has seen a substantial increase, 16% more compared to 2015.
In January 2015, there were 266 new homes sold in Ottawa, in the same period in 2016, the sales were 310. This increase is due to number of different factors says, Atif Mirza, a real estate agent with Remax. “The main thing is, people have more confidence in where the market is heading towards and new home developers are making purchasing a property attractive and easy. In the last four months, sales have been more than same period in 2015”.
Justin Trudeau is a hope for the entire Canada and the new home sales in Ottawa are reflective of this. There is a direct correlation between when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals swept into power in the October federal election and new home sales. “This is the start of more increase to come”, says Mr. Mirza. “it will peak around 11% for the year. ”
“The increased in sales of new homes continued since October, it has not been like this for good four year.”
The uptake is mainly by first time buyers who are gobbling up inventory in the town homes sector of Ottawa. As the supply of townhomes starts to diminish, demand will further increase. Main reason for the higher sales for townhomes is the price point. This is the inventory within reach of the first time buyers.
It was a record month for Mattamy, who develops homes in Toronto, Calgary and different parts of Ottawa like Half Moon Bay – Summerside West. Mattamy ended the month with more than 30 per cent of the entire Ottawa market share for new home sales. Claridge and Minto also did well and so did rest of the builders in Ottawa.
Resale of homes ended 2015 with a bang by posting record month in December but the sales tapered down in January.
“The market momentum gained from the warmer weather in the latter part of 2015 has eased off with the arrival of typical winter weather in January,” OREB president Shane Silva says in a release.
There were 129 condo sales, averaging $247,205 (down 1.3 per cent over January 2015), and 472 other residential sales, averaging $386,839 (up 4.6 per cent over last January).
“A possible explanation for the increase in residential average sale price this month over last year is that the amount of properties sold over $1 million doubled that of last year, with six properties sold this month,” says Silva.
The resales in Ottawa was only down for homes, condos sales on the other hand were up. Price To Income Ratio for home sales in Ottawa is 5.95, which is lower than Montreal at 6.48 and Toronto price to income ratio is 9. Out of the four main cities in Canada, Ottawa has the lowest ratio, which makes buying a home in Ottawa more affordable.
