I’m writing this article as part of a bigger picture market update for the August 2024 edition of my newsletter, Ottawa Real Estate Monthly. Housing affordability is the topic of the times in Canada. Many people point to increasing demand due to population growth primarily driven by high levels of temporary and permanent newcomers to Canada, and the perception there is not enough available housing, or not enough affordable housing, or not a strong enough mix of housing as the dual root causes behind the “housing crisis”.

The three levels of government have all contemplated and in some cases implemented measures intended to spur new construction to build supply. I thought it would be interesting to take a quick (albeit, one-dimensional) look at new construction “today” compared with ten years ago to see how new residential construction has or has not changed over the past decade.

The table below shows the number of housing starts by major area within the greater City of Ottawa, by housing type in 2013 and in 2023.

Ottawa Housing Starts: Observations

• Total housing starts in Ottawa in 2023 were 40.9% higher in 2023 than 2013.
• New apartment construction constituted 63.2% of housing starts in 2023 and 42.1% of housing starts in 2013.
• Construction starts of non-apartment dwellings in 2023 was 10.5% lower than 2013.
• Distribution across areas of the City, without calculating percentages but simply glancing at rough volumes, didn’t change much between 2013 and 2023. The two areas that differed the most were Vanier and Hunt Club/South Keys. Numbers in those areas suggest the start of construction of likely one apartment building in Hunt Club/South Keys in 2013 and 3 or 4 apartment buildings in Vanier in 2023.

The graph below provides a visual representation of the housing starts tabulated above. It takes a few moments to orient your mind to this graph but if you absorb visuals better than numbers, you may find it helpful and interesting.

Lastly, let’s check on housing starts this year to see if they remain in line with 2023, possibly suggesting a trend in new construction as opposed to a banner year in 2023 (relative to ten years ago anyway).

Total housing starts year-to-date through June of this year are 20.7% fewer than the same period in 2023. Of the residential units under construction as of June this year, 78.6% are apartments.

In the newsletter and in another article I wrote for it, Condo Crisis in Ottawa?, I look at the shift in construction of apartment buildings from condominiums to purpose-built rentals and factors driving the condominium apartment market more generally in Ottawa compared to the GTA (Toronto).