Of the many population centres and market towns which surround our portion of Southern Ontario, the City of Woodstock is one of the larger ones within a 45-minute drive of Kitchener-Waterloo.  With a population now north of 40,000 residents, the seat of Oxford County has in recent years become an increasingly popular option for would-be homebuyers exasperated by spiraling costs of ownership in...

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...

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...

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,...

Equity firms, REITs, & private investors have long been active in Ontario housing markets. A Toronto-based developer made headlines in Canada’s business world last month when it announced its intention to pour $1 Billion into residential housing markets across the country.  The plan, as laid out by Core Development Group, is to buy up to 4,000 homes in targeted resale markets where they’ve...

Admitting failure and backtracking is difficult enough for most people, but when’s the last time you heard of a government-affiliated agency tapping out and issuing a public statement outlining their mistakes?  It’s a rare occurrence!  But that’s exactly what happened earlier this week when Canada’s federal housing agency (CMHC) came out with the news that it was reversing steps...

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...

This week we’re making a return to our continuing series of profiles on the smaller towns and communities dotted throughout Chestnut Park West’s predominant market area. We’re also making a return to Wellington County, and to the township of Centre Wellington – Fergus, to be exact. An independent town until 1999 when it merged with the Village of Elora and a handful of other surrounding small...

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...