Some Facts From Ottawa Housing History

One major factor that affected all of Canada was the economy has turned around after 10 years of slow to poor Market conditions. Subsequent to the announcement of free trade in 1989 many businesses closed or restructured to be competitive in the new world of free trade. New or restructured companies could now sell in Canada as well as the USA. As the new organizations were established, they hired staff. Unemployment went from 11% to 7% by 1999. Canadian's confidence level went up as they could see they were safe in their jobs.

Hi tech firms came to Ottawa. We are known as Silicon Valley North. There were more than 80,000 employees in the Hi- Tech sector by 1999.(Up from 15,000 in 1990. However this has since declined to 47,000 and the has gone back up to about 60,000.) This was an amazing development that dramatically increased opportunities for many existing residents and the great flood of new people that came to Ottawa.

Inflation has not been a factor to slow down the economy as many factories and organization are not working at full capacity. Also the US economy has not yet become robust assisting in keeping inflation rates low.

Federal Government restructuring took place in Ottawa from 1995-1998. So once that was over and public servants were essentially safe in their jobs again they could start to look at housing again. They were again prepared to enter into the housing market in 1999.