u/RedaHomesCA

We’re currently testing (not launched yet) a tool that generates a real-time market analysis report for any property/address in under 20 seconds.

Goal:

• No digging through MLS / Excel / CMA reports
• Instant insights based on the subject property + nearby market activity
• Accessible anytime, anywhere

One feature we’re testing is:

📍 Market Position

Showing where a property sits in the local market using map-based comparable sales and market data, including:

• Comparable sales
• Days on market
• Inventory trends
• Absorption rate
• Property-type breakdown
• Seasonal market patterns

One challenge we keep running into:
Because the analysis is hyper-local, the sample size can sometimes get pretty small.

So instead of pretending the data is more accurate than it is, we’re experimenting with using map points / market positioning visuals to help users quickly understand where the property stands relative to nearby homes.

Curious what people would actually want from this.
What’s the market insight you absolutely need before making a decision?

The kind where:
“If I don’t see this, I’m not moving forward.” 😂

We didn’t realize how complicated Ottawa school boundaries were until we started house hunting.

The same home can fall into different schools depending on:

* school board

* grade level

* program

* French Immersion eligibility

So we built an interactive Ottawa map where you can enter an address and clearly see:

* school catchment boundaries

* assigned schools by program and grade

* French Immersion options

* overlapping school zones

* and nearby listings

Here’s how it works on the website 👇

Compared with many other provinces — or even many U.S. cities — Ottawa’s school catchment system can feel a little more complicated than expected.

A lot of people assume it’s simple:

“Just buy in a good school area.”

But once families start researching schools in Ottawa, things become a bit more layered — especially when French programs and different school boards are involved.

For starters, Ottawa has 4 different school boards:

* English Public

* English Catholic

* French Public

* French Catholic

And that’s only the beginning.

Many English schools also offer French Immersion programs, and different schools start French at different grades:

* Early French Immersion

* Middle French Immersion

Which means:

The same home address can belong to different catchments depending on the program.

Sometimes even different grades can lead to different schools.

Another thing parents should also consider is commute time.

Some Ottawa catchments look large on the map, but the actual daily commute can still be challenging.

Being “inside the boundary” doesn’t always mean it’s practical when school drop-offs turn into:

* 30-minute drives

* long winter commutes

* or daily traffic stress

It can become even more complicated when families are trying to plan for:

* multiple children in different school stages

* specific language programs

* or overlapping school preferences

At that point, understanding how different catchments overlap — and how schools are positioned relative to each other — becomes very important.

That’s why researching Ottawa school catchments can take a little more work than many families initially expect.

We recently added both violent crime and property crime heatmaps for Ottawa to help people better understand how safety varies across different parts of the city.

A couple of important notes about the data:

* The maps are split into Violent Crime and Property Crime separately, since the patterns can look different.

* The small blank area near the center is the airport, so there’s no residential crime data there.

* We’re not using raw incident counts. Instead, the rates are adjusted based on population size, which gives a more meaningful comparison between neighborhoods.

Overall, Ottawa still appears to be relatively safe compared to many other large cities in Ontario. That said, there are still noticeable differences between areas, especially between downtown and suburban/rural parts of the city.

For most people, safety is only one factor when choosing where to live, but it’s still something many buyers and renters like to understand alongside things like schools, transit, and affordability.

————————————

About me

Hi, I’m Leah 🙂

I’ve been working with Ottawa housing and neighborhood data (schools, safety, infrastructure, etc.), and noticed how fragmented this information can be across different sources. This is an attempt to bring some of it together in a clearer, more accessible way.

I’ll share more views over time—feedback is always welcome!

Hi all,

I put together a simple map of Ottawa elementary and secondary schools that fall roughly within the top ~10%, along with their catchment boundaries.

The goal is to make it easier to see:

* How different school zones are laid out

* Where boundaries meet or overlap

* How even small location changes can affect which school we’re assigned to

On the map, schools are marked with icons, and some display names directly. In areas where schools are very close together, you may see a numbered icon (e.g., “2”), which just means multiple schools are located there.

This is meant purely as a visual reference to help understand school zones—it’s not an official ranking or a definitive “best schools” list, just one way to explore publicly available data.

———

About me

Hi, I’m Leah 🙂

I’ve been working with Ottawa housing and neighborhood data (schools, safety, infrastructure, etc.), and noticed how fragmented this information can be across different sources. This is an attempt to bring some of it together in a clearer, more accessible way.

I’ll share more views over time—feedback is always welcome!

Hi everyone,

I created a simple map showing Ottawa elementary and secondary schools that rank roughly in the top ~10%, along with their school catchment boundaries.

The map lets us clearly see:

How each school zone is distributed

Where boundaries meet or overlap

How small location differences can place you in a different catchment

On the map, school locations are marked with icons, and some of them display the school names directly.

In areas where multiple schools are close together, the map may show a numbered icon (e.g., “2”), indicating there are multiple schools in that spot.

This is just meant as a visual reference for parents trying to understand school zones — it doesn’t mean these are “the best” schools, just one way to look at the data.

———

About me

Hi — I’m Leah 🙂

I’ve been working with Ottawa housing and neighborhood data (schools, safety, infrastructure, etc.), and kept running into how scattered everything is across different sources.

Just trying to bring some of it together in a way that’s easier to explore and compare.

Will share more views over time — really appreciate any feedback.

Hi everyone,
I created a simple map showing Ottawa elementary and secondary schools that rank roughly in the top ~10%, along with their school catchment boundaries.
The map lets you clearly see:
How each school zone is distributed
Where boundaries meet or overlap
How small location differences can place you in a different catchment

On the map, school locations are marked with icons, and some of them display the school names directly.
In areas where multiple schools are close together, the map may show a numbered icon (e.g., “2”), indicating there are multiple schools in that spot.

This is just meant as a visual reference for parents trying to understand school zones — it doesn’t mean these are “the best” schools, just one way to look at the data.

———
About me

Hi — I’m Leah 🙂
I’ve been working with Ottawa housing and neighborhood data (schools, safety, infrastructure, etc.), and kept running into how scattered everything is across different sources.
Just trying to bring some of it together in a way that’s easier to explore and compare.
Will share more views over time — really appreciate any feedback.

I added an Ottawa crime map based on Reddit feedback — thanks for the suggestions!

Overall, Ottawa’s crime rate is relatively low, but there are still clear differences between areas.

Instead of showing only one combined crime rate, I separated it into violent crime and property crime, since mixing the two can be misleading.

I’ll keep reviewing other suggested datasets and see how to add them next.

I originally tried putting the layers into one map for all of Ottawa, but the data points ended up being way too dense to read clearly.

So instead, I started breaking it down by area — this is a sample view for Kanata.

This map shows elementary and secondary schools ranking in the top 50%, along with flood zones and key infrastructure, to give a more visual sense of how these factors relate across different parts of the area.

Behind this, I’ve actually compiled a much larger dataset covering all of Ottawa — including detailed school boundaries (zones), development, malls, and even upcoming layers like crime data — but this is just a simplified snapshot.

If people are interested, I can share other areas as well.
Also happy to focus on specific data layers if there’s something you’d like to see.

I’ve been looking at detached home inventory around different listings in Ottawa (using ~3–5km radius instead of city-wide numbers).

I think most people would agree that inventory is generally on the higher side right now.

But what stood out to me is how different things can look depending on where you zoom in.

Here are three examples:

• One area is sitting around ~67% of its recent range (elevated, but clearly off its peak)
• Another is closer to ~75% (still relatively supply-heavy)
• And one is basically at 100% — still right near its recent high

So even though the overall market might feel similar, the local picture isn’t really the same.

A 67% vs 100% position in the range actually feels like a pretty meaningful gap in terms of how much supply is sitting around.

Curious how much people are seeing this kind of variation depending on specific neighborhoods or pockets.