Ottawa real estate: how to sell your home in a cool market

What's preventing Ottawa homes from selling in today's market? Taylor Bennett from the Bennett Property Shop joins with more.

If you’ve listed your Ottawa home and it’s not selling, you might not be alone.

The Ottawa real estate market got off to a cool start in 2026, with sales down 5.6 per cent in January and average home prices down 4.5 per cent from one year ago. Taylor Bennett, realtor with the Bennett Property Shop, says 60 per cent of homes being listed aren’t selling.

While the market may have experienced a dip, Bennett says there are things sellers can do to improve their chance of landing a deal.

“During the pandemic we were spoiled, a little bit. Pretty much every house was selling, it was just a matter of making the right price,” Bennett told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Thursday. “Now, you take a little bit more care, a little bit more attention, and make sure your house is presented correctly, so you attract the right type of buyers.”

Pricing

Bennett says the first thing sellers should do is create a plan with their real estate agent, keeping pricing in mind.

“Pricing is a big, big thing right now,” Bennett said.

According to Bennett, most listings are selling for 99 per cent of their asking price, which means sellers may have to tinker with their price to get to the “sweet spot.”

“Don’t make major adjustments, but speak to your agent, look at the comparables and see how your house stacks up.”

Promote the value

Sellers should ensure they’re properly promoting the value of their home, Bennett says. Sometimes, valuable aspects will be overlooked, and “hidden details” aren’t made known to potential buyers.

“Maybe you have a lot of hidden details in your home that are just not obvious, they’re not being promoted in your listing correctly and the buyers aren’t aware and so they think your house is overpriced,” he said. “Meanwhile, your house might be under-priced with all the features you might have there.”

“Price is only an issue if you don’t have value,” Bennett said.

How fast should it sell?

Bennett says sellers should be seeing activity on their listening within the first seven to 10 days.

“During that seven to 10 days you want to make sure you have a lot of promotions,” he said.

Bennett says open houses and online marketing are both popular and effective strategies for getting traction on your listing.

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“Is it on social media? Are the right photos being taken? Is it being presented well? You want to make sure you look at all those things there,” he said.

“A good real estate agent will be able to track these numbers, not just with showings, but how much online interest you’re getting, how many people are looking at your property online.”

When to drop the price

Bennett says there’s a fine line when it comes to adjusting the price of a listing.

“Within the first seven to ten days, you should be getting serious activity on your listing,” he said. “You don’t want to make a price adjustment too fast, you don’t want to make it too slow either. You want to make sure that you do it at the exact right time.”

If the price is lowered too quickly, Bennett says it can look desperate to buyers and affect marketing algorithms.

“You want to give enough time for that algorithm to kind of grasp onto your listing and push it out there,” he said.

If the price isn’t lowered quickly enough, the listing can become stale, and buyers may get scared off.

“Buyers will think that ‘oh, you dug your heels in. That’s the price you want,’ and they just won’t visit your home,” he said.

Sellers should also consider what area of the city their property is in when adjusting the price. For properties in areas where homes sell quickly — like the Glebe or Wellington Village — sellers may want to adjust quickly. For homes in rural areas, or other slower markets, sellers may want to exercise more patience.

“It really comes down to the individual property you have, individual marketing and the neighbourhood that you’re in,” he said. “The real estate agent will be able to tell you all that information.”

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