Ottawa home prices up 20 per cent from 2021: Royal LePage

A new report out from real estate agency Royal LePage says home prices in Ottawa have risen 20 per cent from one year ago.

That means median price of a single-family detached home rose to $947,600.

"At that price point, you really need to go in there with a minimum of $70,000 as just a down payment," Kyle Miller, a mortgage agent with Mortgage Brokers Ottawa, explains to CTV News.

"I think the bigger challenge here is you need to have a household income pushing $190,000."

The median price of a condominium in the city also increased 9.8 per cent to $432,500 during the same period, a price Miller says is much more manageable with a down payment around $22,000 and a household income of under $100,000.

But the latest numbers paint a picture of the affordability of Ottawa, which has become the third most expensive market in Canada, behind only Vancouver and Toronto.

The report by Royal LePage suggests the ever-climbing prices are pushing first-time homebuyers out of the city and into communities like Almonte, Carleton Place, and Arnprior.

"Anywhere they can move out to get somewhere that's a little more reasonable - I've had so many couples," says Dianne Gillette, a broker with Keller Williams Integrity Realty in Arnprior.

"There's tens of tens of tens of couples trying to find places and it's just not possible," she tells CTV News. "And then they're trying to rent because they can't get anything to buy."

One of those prospective buyers is Gillette's daughter-in-law Jenna Hill.

Hill and her husband currently rent in Kanata. They have been trying to buy their first home in Arnprior since 2020.

"At this point we are less picky, beyond less picky," says Hill, whose budget sits at $500,000, "which is crazy to say, thinking back.

"We're competing against those multi-family buyers that have more than two incomes coming in to help pay with that down payment, and they're okay with spending $100,000 over asking," says Hill. "We can't afford that, many people can't afford that."

Gillette says most listings in Arnprior are around $200,000 cheaper than compared to what is listed in Ottawa, but supply remains the issue, with builders still backed up from the pandemic.

"They're putting them in as fast as they can," says Gillette.

Meantime, the Ontario government is introducing new rules to try and eliminate blind bidding, by allowing sellers to hold an open offer process.

"A new option that would allow buyers and sellers to put all their cards on the table," says Tim Hudak, CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association. "Not only price but closing date, how much of a down payment you're making, all of that, and the government has accepted."

For Hill, that change just means they will be able to see just how much they are missing out by.

"It's beyond, beyond, beyond frustrating."