Ottawa's resale housing market tilted further toward buyers in September, as sales held steady from August while a wave of new listings pushed inventory to one of its highest fall levels in a decade, according to the Ottawa Real Estate Board.
Buyers closed 1,010 sales through the MLS System in September, down 6.6 per cent from September 2025 but up 0.8 per cent from August's 1,002 transactions. Only one of the past 10 August-to-September periods produced a sales increase.
The bigger story was supply. New listings reached 2,927, up 3.0 per cent from a year earlier and 38.1 per cent from August. The board noted the median August-to-September increase over the previous decade was just 12.9 per cent.
Active listings climbed to 4,813, up 7.9 per cent from September 2025 and the second-highest September level since 2016. The sales-to-new-listings ratio fell from 47.3 per cent in August to 34.5 per cent, meaning roughly one home sold for every three new listings. Months of inventory rose from 4.5 to 4.8.
"Ottawa's suburban areas remained the main engine of activity in the housing market, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all September sales and continuing to shape the citywide result," said OREB President Tami Eades in the board's monthly release. "At the same time, the downtown and rural areas continue to see more volatility with a widening gap between the number of homes coming onto the market and the number selling."
The three suburban submarkets accounted for 734 sales, or 72.7 per cent of citywide activity, though that combined total was down 8.0 per cent from September 2025. Ottawa Centre posted 6.8 months of inventory and a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 27.6 per cent.
Prices mixed, with underlying softness
The average residential sale price was $685,640, down 1.0 per cent from a year earlier and nearly unchanged from August. The median price was $625,000, down 0.8 per cent year over year.
The MLS Home Price Index told a softer story. The composite benchmark price of $623,500 was down 0.3 per cent from September 2025 and 2.2 per cent from August — the largest August-to-September decline in the series, which dates to 2005. The board said the HPI, which tracks a representative home, points to more underlying price weakness than the average and median figures alone suggest.
Apartments remained the weakest segment. Sales fell 24.8 per cent year over year to 121 transactions, months of inventory rose from 6.3 to 7.3, and the benchmark price of $380,800 was down 6.1 per cent from a year earlier. Single-family sales slipped 4.6 per cent to 535, while townhouse sales fell 3.5 per cent to 329.
Homes sold for an average of 97.5 per cent of their listing price, down from 98.1 per cent last September, and the median time on market rose from 22 to 27 days.
Year to date, 10,288 homes have sold in Ottawa, down 6.9 per cent from the same period in 2025, with total dollar volume of about $7.2 billion, down 7.3 per cent.
The board said the coming months will test whether September's listing surge recedes with the usual seasonal pattern or keeps inventory elevated longer. It noted new listings have declined in both October and November in each of the past 10 years.
For now, the board said, buyers have more choice, more time to decide and additional negotiating room — though affordability and borrowing costs continue to constrain demand.
