The deceleration in the Ottawa housing market fueled by increased mortgage interest rates continued into January 2023, with the average home prices and sales being much lower compared to January 2022. The average home sale price in Ottawa’s housing market was $612,661 in January 2023, a 9% decrease from January 2022. The price decline contrasts with the COVID bull run, which saw a more than 65% price increase from May 2020 to March 2022. January 2023’s average sale price increased by 1.1% month-over-month compared to December 2022’s average sale price of $606,227.

There was also a notable decline in the number of sales compared to last year. There were 606 home sales in January 2023, a decrease of 35% compared to January 2022. The sales remained almost unchanged from last month with a minor 0.8% increase.

Looking at the different property types, freehold homes in Ottawa sold for an average price of $612,661. This is a 3.1% decrease from the average of $655,839 during December 2022 and a 12.4% year-over-year decrease. The average freehold prices are now almost the same as two years ago. There were 460 single-family homes sold in January 2023, which shows a monthly decrease of 1.3% compared with 466 homes sold in December 2022 and 30.4% less than last January.

The condo prices slightly increased after dropping for the last two months. The average sold price for condos was $412,244, 5.2% less than the average sold price of $434,973 in December 2022. This is an 8% year-over-year decrease and an increase of 8.4% over the past two years. In January 2023, 146 condos changed their owners. The sales increased by 8.1% compared with 135 condos sold in December. The condo sales nearly halved compared to January 2022, with a 46.9% yearly reduction.

There are 3.8 months of inventory in the market for condominiums compared to the 0.8 months of inventory last year. The 3.8 months of inventory for freehold homes is also a significant improvement from the 0.9 months last year and half a month of residential inventory seen at the end of March 2022.

There were a total of 1,324 new listings on the Ottawa housing market in January 2023. This is an increase of 16% from the previous year and a decrease of 89.4% from the previous month. The sales to the new ratio (SLNR) for the month was 45.8%. An SNLR ratio of 40%-60% reflects balanced market conditions.