As a realtor with three decades of experience helping clients sell and buy homes across the Ottawa region, I’m well acquainted with the attractions that make our area a great place to live and buy a home.
As I tell clients who are moving to our region from another part of Canada or the world, we’re a medium-sized city with many of the benefits and attractions of larger cities. As Canada’s fourth-largest city (with an estimated population of just under 1 million in 2013 for the city of Ottawa), we have a high standard of living and a relatively stable economy, because of the many federal government jobs in the region.
We have wonderful green spaces, rivers and lakes. We’re home to universities and excellent school systems and we have thriving performing arts, sports and restaurant scenes. Even with all of those attributes, Ottawa’s average house prices are considerably lower than in other large Canadian cities, such as Toronto and Vancouver.
According to Ottawa Real Estate Board figures for September of 2015, the average sale price for a property in Ottawa that month (including condo properties and residential-class properties) was $362, 431. By contrast, the Toronto Real Estate Board reported that the average price for all home types in the Greater Toronto area was $627, 395.
Looking at condos that sold in September of 2015, the average transaction price in the Ottawa area was $257, 303. In Toronto, the average transaction price of a condo that month was $418,603.
So I wasn’t surprised to hear recently that the database Numbeo’s 2015 Mid-Year Quality of Life Index ranked Ottawa as the third best city in the world, in a ranking of 97 cities according to what Numbeo describes as “overall quality of life.”
Numbeo says it is “the world's largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution.”
Numbeo’s ranking of cities was based on several factors, including purchasing power, safety, health care, property price to income ratio, commuting times and low pollution.
Ottawa was ranked third behind the top city of Zurich, Switzerland and second-ranked Canberra, Australia. Ottawa was followed by Munich, and then Gothenburg (Sweden) and Copenhagen.
Five other Canadian cities were ranked among the top 30 of the 97 cities: Calgary (seventh); Edmonton (12th); Winnipeg (21st); Vancouver (28th) and Toronto (33rd spot).
One reason these findings did not surprise me is that Ottawa has also ranked highly in similar surveys.
The 2015 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Ottawa 16th out of the 221 cities that were ranked around the world for their quality of life. The quality of living survey is conducted to help governments and major companies when they are transferring employees.
In the Mercer survey, cities were evaluated on 39 factors, including economy, safety, health, education and transportation. In that survey, only two other Canadian cities were ranked above Ottawa. Vancouver was in fifth place and Toronto was ranked 15th. To read more about the Mercer survey, you can visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Survey
If you’re interested in exploring Ottawa, its attractions and its reasonably priced real estate market, I’d be happy to chat with you. You can reach me through my website, www.nancybenson.com, or you can contact my office at 613-788-2556.
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