The Ottawa Real Estate Board has released its residential resale statistics for the month of December, 2013. 610 properties were sold through the Board’s MLS system in December, compared to 615 properties sold in December of 2012, a decrease of less than one percent.
Of these sales, 145 were in the condominium property class, which includes any property which is registered as a condominium, and 465 were in the residential property class, which is made up of all other residential property types.
The average sale price of all properties sold in December 2013, including condos, was $340,021, which is an increase of 0.9% over the same month in 2012. For condos only, the average sale price decreased by 5.1% over last December, to $245,349. Residential-class properties sold for an average price of $369,543, which is a 3% increase over December of last year.
The latest news release also reports on sales activity for the year. The new president of the Board, Randy Oikle, notes that “home sales in the first part of the year were, for the most part down, in comparison to the year before.” The total number of homes sold through Ottawa’s MLS system in 2013 was 13,873, a decrease of 3.2% over 2012’s 14,326 sales.
Oikle adds that “the introduction of tighter mortgage rules in July 2012 largely affected the market well into 2013. However, as the year progressed the market began to pick back up, and then leveled out in November and December. Impending mortgage rate increases may have caused the increase in the second half of 2013, as many first-time home buyers jumped into the market in advance of these increases.”
Visit the OREB website for the full report. For specific market information on your region, please contact us directly or browse our website for a sales representative who can help you. If you’d like to receive regular updates, sign up to have our blog entries delivered directly to your e-mail inbox.
