Real Estate

UNDERSTANDING HOW OUR MARKET IS WORKING: BUYER ACTIVITY

Housing prices are coming down – so why are we seeing fewer showings? It’s a fair question. You’d think that after two years’ worth of price increase after price increase, weary and frustrated buyers would now be coming out in droves to take advantage of a cooling market. But while the buyer pool hasn’t necessarily disappeared altogether, the numbers do point (both statistically and...

WELCOME NEWS FOR KITCHENER-WATERLOO HOMEBUYERS

We all know that nothing lasts forever; a ‘true-ism’ that applies within every realm of our material world. For many months it was the turn of homeowners to watch their property values climb up and up and up, and to cash in on record-breaking sale prices all over Southwestern Ontario. Meanwhile, for anyone else who found themselves on the purchasing side of a real estate transaction, the past two...

MAKING HOUSING MORE ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE IN ONTARIO

The Provincial Government has moved recently to introduce new legislation aimed at alleviating housing shortages in Ontario and stabilizing the cost of entry to our housing market. Bill 109, or the “More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022”, aims to ease financial pressures on homebuyers by acting to restrict the activities of real estate speculators, curbing predatory development practices, and working...

MAKING SENSE OF A DYNAMIC MARKET

The first two months of 2022 have seen all manner of statistical precedents being smashed in the world of Kitchener-Waterloo real estate.  From record-high average sale prices to record-low average days spent on market, just trying to keep track of where things stand from the perspective of an outsider can be head-spinning enough – and when we factor in the uncertainty being generated by recent...

THE AVERAGE SALE PRICE OF A DETACHED HOME IN KW? ONE MILLION.

It’s a number that anyone who follows the real estate industry with any degree of regularity could see coming for months now, but somehow seeing it in print doesn’t make its realization any the less shocking: the average single detached home in Kitchener-Waterloo sold for nearly One Million Dollars ($997,654) in October. Some might try to write the million dollar mark off as more of a psychological...

UPSHOTS AND IMPACTS: HOW WILL ELECTION RESULTS IMPACT KW?

Five weeks of promises and pledges are now behind us – with Canadians having just elected our 44th session of Parliament, we are once again left with a minority government in charge of determining the country’s direction for the next few years.  The Liberals managed to eek out the largest proportionate number of seats once more, with the Conservatives firmly in opposition and the balance of...

ELECTION 2021: FEDERAL HOUSING POLICY PRIMER

With less than three weeks now left to pass until election day, campaign rhetoric and promises are tumbling out of the various political war rooms at an increasingly frenzied rate. It can be tough for the average voter to keep up with where each party stands on everything from environmental issues to foreign policy, to taxation… and everything else in between. But, this being a real estate blog, I’m...

FEDERAL LIBERALS PROPOSE TO OUTLAW ‘BLIND-BIDDING’

With the announcement of this year’s impending Federal Election on September 20th, Canada’s six major political parties have all scrambled into campaign mode.  And aside from perennial top-of-the-ticket issues such as health care, unemployment, foreign policy and budgetary concerns, there’s a new worry atop the minds of many Canadians according to the latest polling data – housing...

HOMEBUILDERS IN ONTARIO ARE STRUGGLING TO CATCH-UP WITH DEMAND

If there’s one overarching theme to this past year’s real estate market in Southern Ontario, it’s been the inadequacy of supply in keeping pace with surging demand from homebuyers.  This most fundamental of economic laws has served as an engine to drive prices ever higher in our region since early last year.  Frustrated buyers are feeling left behind, and these sentiments are, in turn,...

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