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...

Today, I’ll be picking up where I left off with the next part in a continuing series of community profiles – highlighting some of the smaller towns and cities which surround the major real estate markets of Southwestern Ontario.  Since kicking things off a few weeks ago, we’ve visited three destinations, each of which is less than 40 minutes’ driving time of Kitchener-Waterloo: Paris to the...

After the dramatic ups and downs of the past year, I wanted to take a step away from my typical style of content this week to recognize the achievements of some of my friends and colleagues here at Chestnut Park West. 2020 started out by being anything but certain – I’m sure we can all remember what we were doing almost exactly a year ago now, when businesses started closing their doors, grocery...

For this week’s final post, we’re moving a little farther away from Waterloo Region and our previous community profile on New Hamburg.  Perth County is our immediate neighbour to the west and composes one of Chestnut Park West’s five territories of operation.  Situated in the southern portion of Perth, you’ll find the county seat of Stratford, Ontario – a city of approximately 34,000...

These are far from the easiest of times to be operating in our market as a home buyer – we get it.  The past few months have seen staggering increases in average sale prices across all types of housing in Waterloo-Wellington which have seemingly been pricing ever more people right out of the market, and dashing dreams of homeownership for prospective first-time buyers.  Every day seems to...

As temperatures are beginning to edge back above the freezing mark and our days are getting longer, we’re finally in the home stretch of this year’s long pandemic winter.  While it hasn’t been an easy season for many of us, perhaps for no group is this truer than those folks who have been trying to get a foot in the door of the local housing market. Competition among buyers has been fierce...

Earlier this week over the course of my daily rummaging online, I came across an article published by Millionacres (part of the Motley Fool’s investment network) which outlined a basic starting point for anyone in the United States who might be interested in investing in Canadian real estate. Of course, foreign investment in Canadian real estate is nothing new - nor is it limited to US residents....

Earlier this week, we got underway with the first of what will be an ongoing series of short community profiles about some of the smaller real estate markets which surround the Kitchener-Waterloo area. As prices have increased in larger urban areas over the past several years, we’ve seen an influx of buyers turning to these communities as more budget-friendly (and peaceful) solutions to their need...

A few weeks ago, I posted a short article which outlined the dynamics which are causing smaller-market towns all over Southwestern Ontario to experience a surge in buyer interest and new home construction. As a quick recap, there are two primary forces at play here: 1) Ever-increasing average prices in markets immediately surrounding the GTA over the past several years have caused prospective buyers...

Real estate markets in Waterloo Region weathered 2020 in far better shape than many initial projections would have suggested.  For example, who else remembers that now-infamous CMHC report from last spring which forecast a drop in average sale prices of as much as 18 percent?  In reality, average sale prices in Kitchener-Waterloo increased over the one-year period between December 2019 and...