Even an order for Ottawa federal workers to stop working remotely probably wouldn’t convince many to move closer to the office, says broker
As the COVID-19 pandemic faded in the rearview mirror, major banks quietly ramped up efforts to bring workers back to the office for most of the week – and a recent push by the Ontario provincial government to end remote working for its employees has sparked speculation that the public sector could be next.
That’s also raised questions about the potential impact of return-to-office measures on the housing market and a potential shift in homebuyer appetite in major cities.
Ontario Public Service workers will be mandated to work four days a week in the office from November and full-time by January, while Ottawa city employees are also returning to the office five days a week.
Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, has been a fervent advocate for ending work-from-home arrangements, recently urging the federal government to introduce its own mandates for office work.
“It’s time to bring people back to work so that they can be mentored, they can collaborate,” he said in August. “It’s a lot easier looking at somebody in the eye instead of sitting over a telephone or a computer screen.”
Affordability constraints a big deterrent on city homebuying
When offices shuttered during the pandemic, scores of Canadians headed for the suburbs and beyond, buying more spacious properties in less pricey markets and flocking away from the big city.
But despite mounting pressure to return to the office, Canadians aren’t exactly thrilled by the prospect of an end to remote-working arrangements. A mere 9% of workers in professional, finance, and knowledge sectors would work full-time in the office if they could, according to recent Angus Reid polling, and 59% say they’d prefer to work mostly from home if given the option.
That suggests a lack of enthusiasm for returning to the city, whether that means commuting from further afield or relocating back closer to the workplace.
Calgary’s housing market is showing signs of cooling after a red-hot run, with apartment and row-style homes leading the price declines.https://t.co/aV7Po0FYVa
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) September 9, 2025
And even a government mandate for federal workers to return to the office five days a week wouldn’t necessarily heat up the housing market in Ottawa, according to Chris Allard (pictured top), a broker with Smart Debt Mortgages in the city.
He told Canadian Mortgage Professional purchasing a home closer to the office simply didn’t make sense for many federal workers, even if living further away meant they’d face a lengthy commute every day.
“I think [return-to-office efforts] will have a somewhat limited impact,” he said. “I say that from the standpoint that most of the people who work within the government have an income that, per person, might be somewhere between $70,000 and $140,000 for the most part. So the household incomes are somewhere between $140,000 and maybe $280,000.
“A lot of those borrowers, unless they’re later on in their career, are not buying in the core because they can’t afford living in the core. So they’re going to buy in suburbia or the outskirts purely from an affordability standpoint. So I don’t think a return to work is going to make an immense difference.”
No sign of a big slump in Ottawa home prices
While other big-city markets – most notably Toronto – have seen prices slip amid a market cooldown over the past year, Ottawa has continued to eke out price growth.
The Ottawa Real Estate Board (OREB) said this week that the average price for all home types increased by 3.6% last month compared with August 2024, jumping to $686,536. That’s despite an 8.6% jump in new residential listings in August and while the pace of sales slowed compared with August, there were 12.1% more transactions across the city year over year.
Allard said that continuing lack of affordability suggests many federal workers will have little choice but to cast their homebuying net a little further than the city, even if they’re ordered back to the office.
“Do they prefer to be a little bit closer to the city? Perhaps, but I think at the end of the day it’s more about income,” he said. “What does your income permit you to buy based on qualification guidelines? And for many of these borrowers, they’re going to buy in suburbia or further and further out.”
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