First Quarter Recap with Mitch MacKenzie

Apr 12

The first quarter of the year is over in Ottawa, and our amazing agent Mitch MacKenzie has put the numbers together for us to analyze how 2022 is looking for us so far in downtown condos.

In the first quarter of 2022, we saw a total of 316 sales. In 2021, we actually saw a slightly higher number, with 349 sales.

55% of sales sold over or at list price this year, whereas 58% did in 2021.

That being said, we’ve seen 6 less average days on market (42 this year, 48 last) and an increased average sale price from $469,257 to $519,472.

The largest sale in quarter 1 of 2021 was $1,750,000. This year, the largest sale was $2,475,000! Mitch explains this shows us that money is still being spent in our real estate market on condominium properties. We have heard that during the pandemic, many people are moving out of the city and into larger, more isolated homes. However, we are seeing that people are still excited in investing in real estate within the city, and paying heavily to do so! This large sale was at the luxurious 90 George building in the Byward Market.

We are expecting to see prices in Ottawa continue to rise, and we can see that we’re not the only agents who recognize this. Plenty of out of town buyer’s agents are coming into Ottawa. In 2021, we saw 11 non-OREB (Ottawa Real Estate Board) agents help buyers buy a property in Ottawa. In 2022, this number rose to 17, a 54.54% increase! (Remember these numbers are just for first quarter). Mitch explains that this shows us that buyers are relocating to Ottawa, using agents that are not registered within our board. Agents who are not registered in Ottawa don’t know the market here, the buildings and their reputations, or the average pricing here. This can lead to clients overpaying when they aren’t working with a local agent.

More and more buyers are coming from out of town as prices get hot elsewhere. And now is the time to buy in Ottawa, because we’re seeing huge increases in price everywhere!

Mitch broke down the average price and days on market for individual condo-types as well for this quarter compared to 2021.

Studio units in 2022 sold for an average of $314,014 this quarter, compared to $283,977 in Q1 2021. This is an increase of 10.57% in price. They were on the market for an average of 28 days in 2022, compared to 49 days on market in 2021. We also saw less sales, down from 15 in 2021 to 11 in 2022. Condos are selling faster, for more money!

One Bed/One Bed + Den units sold for an average of $431,698 in 2022, compared to $393,191 in 2021. Days on market were down nearly 10%, from 48 days on market in 2021 to 38 days on market in 2022. We saw less sales again in 2022, from 177 sales in 2021 to 152 sales in 2022. One again, these condos are selling faster for more money! Inventory and demand is driving this.

Two Bed/Two Bed + Den units sold for an average of $607,405 this year, compared to $576,895 - around a 5% increase in price. They sold around 15% faster this year as the average days on market went down from 52 in 2021 to 44 in 2022. There were 140 sales in 2022, compared to 151 in 2021.

We’ve seen massive growth in price from 2021 to 2022. Returning to earlier statistics, noting that more homes actually sold at or over list price in 2021 than this year, we can assume that sellers are pricing their homes higher than expected - they are aware of the current market and hopeful to make more money on their homes.

Mitch also dug into TREB (Toronto Real Estate Board) Condo Sales over the past 5 years and noticed something very interesting. In Q4 in 2017 the average sale price of a condo in Toronto was $515,816 (remember ours this Q1 in 2022 from above was $519,472). Since 2017 the TREB Average Condo Sale Price has increased 27.36% to a Q4 2021 Average of $710,087.

Ottawa’s last 5 years of condo growth was, you guessed it, 28.17% (basically the same as Toronto). The correlation here is very interesting. We can see both OREB and TREB are essentially growing at the same rate. Ottawa condos are on pace to average $700,000+ by 2027 if the 5% growth continues annually. (Last year in all of OREB the average condo price for Apartments grew 10.64% - Downtown condos grew right in line with this average at 10.7%)

Thank you Mitch for putting together these numbers for us so that we can continue to understand Ottawa’s hectic real estate market!