A real estate broker represents you when buying or selling: pricing the home from comparable sales, marketing it, screening for genuinely qualified buyers, then drafting and negotiating offers through to closing. Their value is intensely local — the right broker knows the price tiers, the inventory and what actually closes in your Ottawa sector, not just the city at large. Before signing a brokerage agreement, verify three things: an active provincial licence, recent and verifiable activity in the specific sector, and clear written terms on commission. Payotte does that verification up front and recommends a single broker per sector — the one the public data supports, never the one who paid the most.
The Ottawa real estate market
As of April 2026, the MLS benchmark price in Ottawa stood at $629,800, down 2.1% year-over-year. The average home, all property types combined, traded near $712,184. Inventory sat at roughly 3.4 months of supply, and homes took about 21 days to sell.
Scope: Region de la chambre OREB (National Capital Region) · OREB · Apr 2026. — Source : OREB
How much does a REALTOR® cost?
Commission structures vary sharply by province (WOWA, 2026): in Ontario, a combined 3.5%–5% of the sale price is typical (the buyer-side share often set at 2.5%); British Columbia commonly uses a graduated scale of about 3%–4% on the first $100,000 then 1%–2% on the balance; Alberta roughly 7% on the first $100,000 then 3% on the remainder, split between both brokerages.
The seller generally pays both commissions — the buyer's agent is usually free for the buyer. Everything is negotiable: no province fixes real estate commissions by law.