Ottawa resale housing market on record-setting pace: report

By Robert Bostelaar, The Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 2007

Ottawa will be among a handful of Canadian cities that are expected to post record sales in the resale housing market in 2007 and 2008, according to a new report by RE/MAX, a national real estate sales company.

The forecast predicts sales in Ottawa this year will hit 14,750, up five per cent from last year's record sales of existing homes.

In 2008, RE/MAX predicts resales will jump by another four per cent to 15,340.

At the same time, prices will bump up by six per cent in each of those years, averaging $272,000 in 2007 and $288,320 next year, according to the report.

Nationally, the report says strong sales in Western Canada will help push existing home sales up 13 per cent in 2007 to a record 545,400 but things will cool in 2008 as sales drop to 500,000.

Fuelled by hectic activity early this year in Western Canada, the average price of houses will increase by nine per cent to $303,000 in Canada in 2007, followed by a six per cent increase in 2008, RE/MAX predicted in a report released yesterday.

Compared to some Western cities, Ottawa's moderate gains in both price and sales volume looked like a bit of a bore.

Sales in Regina are forecast to see an explosive 35-per-cent gain in 2007 - the highest for any city in the RE/MAX national forecast. Prices jumped 31.5 per cent in Edmonton to $330,000 this year.

In the Greater Vancouver Area, where prices are already the highest in the country, prices should climb another 10 per cent to $560,000, on average, this year and reach $600,000 by the end of next year, the report said.