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...
As we round the corner from June into July and the summer holiday season gets well and truly underway, tradition dictates a seasonal slow-down in real estate markets. At least, that’s how things have usually unfolded along historical lines. But with an anything-but-normal past 18 months, are any of us out there really surprised by this point that sale volumes and prices continue to defy...
Waterloo Region’s continued growth and resilience in the face of all obstacles has been a common thread across much of the material I’ve published over the past year and a half. Real estate is, of course, the lens through which we’ve monitored the developments of an unpredictable and tumultuous time, but it must be said that a strong housing market is an excellent indicator of the economic...
Just yesterday our local real estate board released its monthly statistics report for the Kitchener-Waterloo market. The numbers tell a story which will, by now, be familiar to most of you – average sale prices are way up over last year, average time to sell is way down, more listings than ever are being sold each month, and a record number of new listings are appearing every week. Yet...
Each spring, my brokerage (Chestnut Park West) works to compile a buyer-friendly guide to the newest condominium developments that are taking shape around our region. While last year’s guide unfortunately was not able to come together due to the uncertainty brought about by the pandemic and the resultant difficulties in contacting developers and sales centers, I’m happy to report that this year’s...
Plenty can change over the course of a year – something we know all too well looking back from where we stand here in May of 2021. While entire aspects of our daily lives have been upended, with the increasingly rapid pace of vaccine rollouts we’re now able to see a return to normality a little more clearly on the horizon. But on the real estate front, some of the more unexpected aspects...
It’s official – the tiny homes movement will soon be coming to a neighbourhood near you. Just this week, Kitchener City Council unanimously approved a motion to allow additional dwelling units to be constructed on qualifying existing lots all across the city. This amendment is expected to affect the status of as many as 57,000 properties in Kitchener, with existing zones of RES-1 through...
A couple of weeks back I pushed out a post on how the student housing market here in Waterloo has been faring in the midst of an unprecedented past 12 months. The full article is available for review here, but the Coles Notes version is that we’ve been performing much better than was expected initially. Even in the worst of the pandemic, more university students have opted to remain in...
Sometimes extraordinary things can start to feel routine if they happen often enough – a phenomenon many of us in the real estate business might be beginning to experience for ourselves. Ever since the pandemic bit down on us last spring, housing prices have soared in defiance of all initial expectations here in Waterloo-Wellington. The latest report released by KWAR just this past Monday makes this...
Over the past several weeks, I’ve outlined the case for optimism regarding the student housing market in Waterloo on a couple of occasions, most thoroughly here. What seemed to be a particularly vulnerable sector amid the initial uncertainty of last year has since demonstrated an impressive knack for resiliency, with vacancy rates staying low and property values holding strong. I’ve...
