Posted on: March 11th, 2022 by Chris Scott
When relocating to another city it is important to know what is going on in that real estate market. We wanted to share our most recent update and video, to assist you with planning for your house hunting trip to Ottawa.
Things are picking up as we head into the Spring season. We have seen a 52% increase in transactions from January to February of 2022 via MLS. This is a strong indicator that the Spring market has sprung.
The number of new listings in February (1,762) offers some hope for prospective Buyers. At 4% higher than the five-year average and 12% higher than February 2021, it resulted in an almost 10% increase in residential-class property inventory compared to last year at this time.
There is hope that the trend of increased new listings will continue so that the housing stock can be replenished.
We are now sitting at less than a month’s worth of inventory, which is still looking like a seller’s market. This means buyers need to have all of their financing set up so that they can move quickly in this market.
Our team has strategies that can help both our buyers and our sellers in this type of market. Please reach out if you have any questions about the current market or anything else we can help with.
Posted on: March 2nd, 2022 by Chris Scott
I know that one of the biggest challenges with real estate and house hunting in Ottawa is the lack of available homes for sale. Rest assured our team is doing everything we can to find off-market opportunities for our incoming military buyers. We were able to pair up a few military clients last year with off-market deals. We have just proactively sent out over 25,000 letters for this express purpose to our local communities.
The system does work. Here is an example:
A seller in Jackson Trails, Stittsville got in contact with us about selling their detached 4 bedroom home. On the outside, it looked like most others in the area. On the inside, the house was extremely cluttered. Writing that I almost feel like that is an understatement. Lots of religious artifacts throughout the house and it would have needed a total staging overhaul. I presented each option to the seller and they said they would consider an offer off market if they could get a very specific price. The price was about what they would have got if it was staged.
On the other side, our buyers were coming in as a military transfer from another Canadian base were getting fed up with the process of offering against 15-20 other offers. It can be overwhelming, to say the least. They were happy to pay a slight premium for the exclusivity of the deal. This allowed everyone to leave happy.
We also had another past military client sell exclusively to an international military transfer to Ottawa. Again, they had a price they wanted and we delivered. In both cases, the process was smooth with only one showing each. In both cases, the buyer did not actually see the home in person until we showed up on closing date. We took care of every detail of these purchases and sales for our clients. House hunting is stressful enough, add on top of that relocating to a new city, we pride ourselves on being there every step of the way.
In closing our team is proactive with trying to produce options for our military clients relocating to Ottawa. If you are posted to Ottawa feel free to get in touch with our team. We are here to help!
