We often hear about statistics that compare certain figures with those of the past year’s. Housing starts, average home prices, and consumer confidence are all things that are regularly measured, recorded, and then reported on. But the Ottawa Citizen has just released stats comparing Ottawa’s housing market in the early 90s to how it looks today, and it included everything from Ottawa mortgages to shag carpeting. There are so many interesting observations, we thought we’d break it down easily for you:
- In 1992, the average price of a home in Ottawa was $204,416. Today that average sits at $478,292.
- In the early 90s, homeowners and buyers thought they were getting a real deal on their mortgage when rates dropped to 9.5% after hovering around 17% ten years earlier. That would be unacceptable for homeowners today that are paying 5% or less on mortgage interest.
- In 1992 the number of housing starts was 5,830. In 1995 that number dropped to 2,190 and remained in that area for the next several years. In 2011, the total number of housing starts was 5,794.
- In 1992, Ottawa had a total of 292 condo starts inside the city; today that number has increased to 1,354.
- In 1993 architects were telling people to forget about living rooms, and to add large common rooms to their homes instead. That concept has come a long way with one builder telling the Citizen, “We haven’t built a living room in two years.”
- In 1997, it was thought that kitchen home renovations would play a huge part of home resale and our living space. It was at that time that the Toronto Star issued a story about how our fridges would order items when we ran out, and our kitchen cupboards would be self-cleaning. On that one, we’re still waiting.
- Shag carpeting, which first made its appearance in the 70s, came back briefly in the early 2000s. The thought that shag could come back once again was something that seemed inevitable by some and positively laughable by others.
- While blacks, whites, silvers, and neon dominated the colour palette of homes in the 80s, the 90s were all about being kinder to our environment, conserving energy, and reducing resources. For this reason the most popular colours were earth tones including sage, greens, and browns. Light wood and gold and silver accents also became especially popular.
- While a budget for home renovations today could easily reach and extend past the $40,000 mark, this wasn’t the case two decades ago. $1,000 was the average that was spent, while $2,000 was considered to be a very big renovation.
