Not only did March bring beautiful weather but it also brought on huge resale numbers. As last March was the beginning of COVID-19 lockdowns, let’s how we’ve faired this year for the month of March.
Here are the March 2021 numbers:
- Total number of units sold: 2,285 – up 51% from 1,514 in March 2020.
- Five-year average unit sales for March: 1,688.
“A few factors contributed to the high number of resales in March,” states Ottawa Real Estate Board President Debra Wright. “Typically, real estate is heavily influenced by the weather, and we had remarkable and unseasonably warm temperatures last month, which facilitated Buyers’ ability to view and purchase homes.”
“Also, there was a significant uptick in the number of new listings that came onto the market. This total (2,798) was higher than the 5-year listing average, which hadn’t happened since July 2020, when the first lockdown ended. Ongoing pent-up Buyer demand meant that most of the properties that came on the market in March were quickly acquired.”
“Meanwhile, the 51% increase in transactions over last year can be attributed to the State of Emergency, which commenced mid-March 2020 and impacted overall sales that month. Measuring against a drastically reduced comparable made this year’s figure jump,” Wright points out.
Here are the specifics for each property class:
- Number of residential-class properties sold: 1,705 – up 47% in March 2020.
- Average sale price of a residential-class property: $758,802 – up 35% in March 2020.
- Number of condominium-class properties sold: 580 – up 65% from 203 in March 2020.
- Average sale price of a condominium-class property: $437,041 – up 18% in March 2020.
“These accelerated price growths are purely a result of long-term inventory shortage. I don’t believe that Ottawa’s market is by any means out of control but rather is coming into its own. However, until there is action at all three levels of government to resolve our supply challenges, our housing prices are not going to stabilize. And this phenomenon is not occurring in our market alone; housing stock scarcity is a nation-wide issue.”
“We have already seen an upturn in new listings coming onto the market, and we are hopeful this trend will continue. In fact, there may be some pent-up supply as Sellers have held back during the pandemic even though the market has been more active than expected throughout.”
