Housing prices jump as supply remains tight

Perhaps it was just a matter of time, but some of the steam has gone out of the housing market in Ottawa’s western districts — from Tunney’s Pasture to Britannia.

While homeowners in these areas still registered year-over-year gains of five per cent to seven per cent for single-family properties sold in June, these were among the smallest increases in the city, according to data published Thursday by the Ottawa Real Estate Board.

This marks a sharp change from the pattern of the past couple of years, when price hikes in Westboro and surrounding districts have consistently been among the highest in Ottawa.

Instead, the largest gains for houses sold in June through the multiple listing service occurred in Manotick, Kanata and Barrhaven, where a scarcity of listings has produced bidding wars and, last month, year-over-year gains that topped 11 per cent.

Overall, the benchmark price for single-family homes in June was $427,700, up 8.8 per cent in the past year.

The benchmark price, developed by the Canadian Real Estate Associations and others, is an attempt to capture underlying trends in the market. It does so through an index that adjusts for differences in housing characteristics such as type of roof, number of bathrooms or property size.

Real estate associations continue to offer raw data as well. For instance, the Ottawa Real Estate Board reported Thursday that the average price for residential properties sold in June was $449,200, up 3.4 per cent from a year earlier.

Over the same period, prices fetched through the sale of condominiums averaged $293,300, up 1.2 per cent from June 2017. Sale prices varied quite a bit by district. They were highest in the downtown core, where the average condominium sold for $377,4000, down nearly 10 per cent year over year.

Condominium prices also fell in the east — they were down 12.9 per cent to $294,400.

Prices for this class of real estate improved six per cent and 17 per cent, respectively, in the west and south.

This brought the cost for this type of property to $360,000 in the west and not quite $274,000 in the south.

The Ottawa Real Estate Board reported there were 3,905 active listings at the end of June for single-family homes compared to 1,335 condo listings. These were down 13.5 per cent and 19.5 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier.

The relative tightness of the market can also be seen in the speed with which properties are sold. Houses sold in June had been listed an average 36 days compared to 41 for those sold in June 2017 while condos took 46 days — down from 60.