In a remarkable performance, November 2024 new-home sales showed a significant improvement over the year before, according to the latest monthly market report prepared by industry analyst PMA Brethour Realty Group for the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association.
Cheryl Rice, PMA Ottawa’s president, called it the “November surprise.”
There were 424 new-home sales this November, an incredible 98 per cent higher than the 214 sold a year ago. Sales were also 10 per cent higher in November than they were in October (383 sales), which is “a little out of the norm for this time of year,” she says.
While the tally of sales for the year to date (3,464) is still below the five-year average (3,777), it is almost 1,000 sales higher than the same period last year (2,436), which is an encouraging sign for a market that has been slow over the last couple of years.
“The big story for November is where all those sales came from,” Rice notes. It started with buyers, who were feeling more confident and optimistic with lower interest rates (the Bank of Canada has lowered its benchmark lending rate, which affects mortgage rates, more than a full percentage point since June, including another drop this week).
Adding to this more positive attitude, Rice says, is an increased availability of affordable product — particularly condo towns, which captured a surprising 44 per cent of the market, “the highest share for this product type ever achieved,” according to PMA data.
Also unusual is where in the city those sales originated. The east end, which usually lags the south and west ends for market share, captured the highest share at 46 per cent. Typically, the east end hovers around 20 per cent of market share.
Rice notes that 93 per cent of the east end’s sales were a combination of two-storey towns and condo towns. And a large part of the east end’s popularity in November is thanks to Caivan, which introduced its Summit Series of stacked condo townhomes at Orléans Village in November and promptly sold out of all the ones released.
“Caivan’s success with this new series has helped the builder double its year-to-date market share, ranking them among the top three builders in Ottawa for the month of November,” Rice says. In November alone, Caivan had almost as many sales as it did for all of 2023, giving them a commanding 39 per cent of builder market share for the month.
MORE: Summit Series creates a buzz
The popularity of the Summit Series and other types of townhomes speaks to the continuing issue of affordability for prospective new-home buyers. But the positive response seen in November is an encouraging sign, particularly in combination with the November resale market, which also saw a healthy improvement.
