The ship that is the housing market is righting itself, if the June 2025 new-home sales numbers are anything to go by.
“New-home sales in June reached 357, up eight per cent from June 2024 and 13 per cent from May, confirming that Ottawa’s spring market was indeed delayed,” says Cheryl Rice, who is Ottawa president of PMA Brethour Realty Group. PMA prepares monthly reports on the Ottawa new-home market on behalf of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association.
“Encouragingly, this is the first time in 2025 that sales have surpassed the five-year average of 257,” she says, although she notes that they are still short of the 10-year average of 401. “Combined with year-to-date totals still trailing 2024 by six per cent — a year that was already considered mild — this suggests the market remains in recovery.”
The June 2025 vs. June 2024 performance mirrored the resale market, which saw an increase of 10 per cent to also push it above the five-year average.
While new-home sales for the year to date are still trailing the average, the market remains balanced, Rice says, with both sales and supply on the rise as the delayed spring continues to unfold.
We’ve also seen a slight resurgence in sales of singles vs. townhomes in June. Traditionally, the two home types jockey for first place in market share, but as affordability increasingly became an issue, townhomes became the favourite, claiming a strong majority. But in June, singles captured 38 per cent of the market (that’s up from 31 per cent), with townhomes struggling to stay above 50 per cent (they came in at 51).
While the overall numbers are promising, Rice says, not all builders have returned to 2024 levels. Minto Communities is an exception, having “been the primary driver of the recent recovery and the increase in single sales overall for May and June.”
Minto registered a whopping 40 per cent market share in June, where the more typical showing is under 30 per cent. Rice attributes that to Minto’s launch of several new phases starting in May, which were “paired with price reductions of $90,000 to $100,000 on singles across key communities, with starting prices now in the high $700,000s on a 36-foot lot. These adjustments have resonated with buyers in a market where affordability remains a top concern.”
Minto’s momentum continued into June, she notes, with the release of singles at Riversbend, “a highly popular community that previously offered only two-storey and three-storey townhomes. This release contributed 10 of Minto’s 69 single-family sales for the month.”
Rice also points to Caivan and the release of three-storey singles at its Barrhaven community The Ridge, starting at $699,000 and accounting for 10 sales in June. “These results highlight a clear appetite for single-family homes in the Ottawa market. Builders have also started rolling out more targeted promotions as they prepare for the summer market.”
Looking ahead, she says that expectations of further interest rate cuts and growing consumer confidence “are likely to support additional gains in the second half of 2025.”
