Ottawa New Build Market Shift 2026: What Buyers and Sellers Need to Know - Copy

Market update - 2026

May 20, 2026•5 min read

Ron's Weekly Real Estate Roundup

This Week in the Market

The past couple of weeks have been extremely active across both the resale and new construction markets.

A lot of our time recently has been spent out in the field visiting communities, builders, and developments with clients. In my opinion, that’s one of the most important parts of buying new construction right now.

One of our recent buyers initially came to us after already being fairly deep into conversations with a builder in the east end. After walking through everything properly, they quickly realized there were quite a few things they hadn’t accounted for: closing costs, retrofit expenses, timelines, and overall long-term value relative to competing projects nearby.

What surprised them most was how much variation existed between builders at similar price points.

In some cases, another nearby development offered a noticeably stronger product for nearly the same acquisition cost.

That’s why I consistently recommend buyers explore at least 2–3 communities before making a decision. Not just for pricing, but to properly understand builder quality, future plans, resale potential, timelines, and the actual product you’re committing to long term.

For this particular client, we ultimately decided to hold off and wait for a future release in another east-end community that aligned much better with their long-term goals.

Without those conversations, they likely would have moved forward with the initial project and potentially regretted it later.

On the resale side, activity has remained fairly steady.

Over the past week we’ve seen:
• 369 firm sales
• 375 conditional sales
• 686 new listings

In my opinion, it’s still a buyer’s market overall, although strong opportunities are absolutely moving when priced correctly.

One thing we continue to see quite often is conditional-sale friction. Many buyers today need to sell a property before purchasing another, which creates additional pressure depending on location, price point, and overall presentation.

Interestingly, the new build market has remained surprisingly active.

We recently completed two transactions in Rockland over the past couple of weeks, and I was genuinely surprised by the amount of absorption occurring there. One particular builder reportedly sold roughly nine homes in just two weeks, which is significant activity for that market.

I still believe some of the surrounding areas outside Ottawa proper are being overlooked relative to the price differences buyers are seeing today.

As for sellers, preparation matters more than ever.

The homes performing best right now are generally the ones entering the market fully prepared and strategically positioned from day one.

That means proper staging when needed, professional photography and media, targeted advertising, strong presentation, and realistic pricing relative to current competition.

A lot of sellers underestimate how important marketing has become in this environment. Our photography and video packages alone for listings are typically in the $1,000–$1,200 range depending on the property because presentation and exposure genuinely matter the most.

We’re also seeing many sellers hesitate too long on pricing adjustments.

If a property is not generating meaningful activity within the first couple of weeks, the market is usually sending a message. And when reductions happen, they often need to be meaningful enough to move the home into an entirely new buyer search bracket.

Small reductions frequently do very little psychologically for buyers in today’s market.

Ultimately, the market will determine where value sits. If the product is positioned correctly, buyers will usually tell you fairly quickly.

As always, if you’re considering a move, exploring new construction, or simply want clarity on what’s happening within your specific segment of the market, feel free to reach out anytime.

I also recently finished a 65-page Ottawa New Build Buyer Guide that walks through the process from A–Z, including builder comparisons, closing costs, timelines, and community insights. Happy to send it over to anyone interested.

Mortgage talk - Chris Allard Team

For this week’s deep dive, I want to talk about income and how it is looked at for mortgage qualification. Different income structures have different paperwork requirements and different qualification considerations for lenders. Below I highlight some of the most common income qualifications and documents required by best rate lenders:

Salaried Individual -This is the easiest income to qualify. Lenders often require only a letter of employment, pay stub and perhaps the most recent year’s T4.
Salary + Bonus -The salary component of the income is treated the same as above, BUT the bonus portion would need to be paid for two years in order to be considered. To use the bonus, lenders would look to use the letter of employment, a recent pay stub and two years worth of T4s to collect the total income earned average.
Business for Self -When a borrower is self-employed, the lender will use a 2-year average of the T1 generals (complete tax return) in order to determine what income can be used. The lenders require all pages of the tax returns and the corresponding notices of assessment to see if there are any income taxes owing.
Commission Income -Similar to business for self individuals, lenders will want either two years of complete tax returns -OR- two years T4s depending on how the borrower is paid.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the way lenders qualify income, but it is some of the most common examples that we see. Check out a video below showing how I qualify a borrower with a salary and bonus structure style of income.

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