Ottawa’s housing market is enduring through the nation’s current slump, while other cities in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are on a steady decline.
New research from the Real Estate Investment Network’s (REIN) COVID-19 Special Edition: Real Estate Cycle Update report found that major markets like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton are all beginning to slowdown, but that Ottawa is in the beginning to middle stages of a boom.
“Ottawa emerges as an outlier in the current pandemic landscape partly because as the seat of Canada’s federal government it’s insulated to some extent from the massive pandemic-related joblessness impacting the country,” says Jennifer Hunt, vice-president of research for REIN.
Report findings are based on REIN research methodologies including REIN’s Long-Term Real Estate Success Formula and REIN’s Real Estate Cycle Scorecard, both of which look at rapidly-evolving changes of economic fundamentals affecting the housing market, such as GDP, jobs, and population. The report suggests the impacts of COVID-19 on these driving indicators will move most markets further into the slump phase in the coming months despite provinces gradually re-opening their economies.
The real estate cycle functions as a predictive tool to determine which phase a specific market is currently in based on driving indicators and market influencers. The report shows where specific markets are in the real estate cycle including what to do and what to avoid doing.
“We may not be able to direct these market forces, but we can control how we respond – employing exactly the kind of ‘pandemic pivot’ we need to protect our property during these turbulent times,” she adds. “The key will be in watching for indications of recovery, such as economic activity, employment, immigration, and new rental demand.”
