The March Ottawa Real Estate Update

I hope you are enjoying the spring weather after a long and snowy winter! The spring real estate market is upon us here in Ottawa and things are getting interesting. Read on for more on what is happening and how this is likely to play out over the next few months.

The Ottawa Real Estate Board have released their statistics for last month (February 2025) and it looks like inventory is continuing to climb, while prices stay stable.

Let’s look at February’s key numbers from the OREB report:

Interestingly, OREB did not release price data broken down by property type this month. I am not sure if that is a one month oversight or whether they are changing the way that they report prices.

However, they reported that the average price of homes sold in February 2025 was $669,945, a 1.4% improvement from February 2024. This is in line with the data from last month which showed single family homes and condos were up while townhomes were down a bit from 2024.

As for listings, OREB revealed that listings are up significantly from 2024:

• Active residential listings totaled 3,735 units at the end of February 2025, reflecting a substantial 61.4% increase from February 2024. Active listings were 95.7% above the five-year average and 51.4% above the 10-year average for the month of February.
• Months of inventory stood at 4.6 at the end of February 2025, compared to 2.6 in February 2024. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.

My take from this data: It looks like inventory is continuing to rise, and that means that prices will face downward pressure as houses tend to stay on the market longer.

I have been highlighting the inventory run up over the past few months in this newsletter and in my blog as each month the months of inventory continues to trend upwards. If this high inventory situation keeps up, we may see the market transition into a buyers market over the course of the spring, which could keep a damper on prices.

Best,

Chris Hendricks

P.S. If you are thinking of selling your home this spring, check out my free eBook – 28 Tips to Sell Your Home Quickly and for the Best Price, it contains actionable and useful tips you can use right now to help prepare your home, so you can sell with confidence knowing you are not leaving money on the table – even in a tough buyers market.