July 10 2017
Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News Update
Today we look at the minimalist movement, Ontario’s reliance on the housing market, your landlord, June’s KW real estate numbers, Cambridge’s LRT route, Vancouver compared with Seattle and a Kiwi living in a van.
Living small
Money has a lot to do with the minimalist movement, and so it should.
Bubblicious
Ontario, once the industrial powerhouse of Canada, has become reliant on its housing market to fuel economic growth. The Bank of Canada intended its low interest-rate policy to spur investment in factories. Instead, the condo market became bubblicious.
Who is your landlord?
Individual investors own about 50% of the stock of purpose-built rental apartments units in Canada. This group includes all non-incorporated owners of the rental housing stock, and is mainly composed of individuals and small joint ventures. In most centres, the average rent of units owned by individual investors tends to be lower than that of units owned by other types of owners.
June Statistics
For the first time this year, home sales in June decreased on a monthly basis. Last month’s 716 residential sales were down 3.2% compared to last year’s record breaking June. This brings the total number of sales during the first half of the year to 3,834, an increase of 9.1% compared to 2016. The average sale price for a single family home sold in June was $537,389. Depending who’s got the calculator, prices are down from last month 3%, 6% or 10%.
Opposing the proposed
Cambridge city council opposes the LRT route proposed because it travels over green space behind homes specifically between Shantz Hill Road to Hespeler Road.
Comparing Vancouver and Seattle through the lens of foreign real estate buyers.
In Vancouver, evidence indicates that foreigners purchasing homes are partially responsible for a home price bubble (there is that word again), but that empty homes are not a major contributing factor. Vancouver’s prices are also being inflated by both a housing shortage and the self-reinforcing nature of bubbles.
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RBC raises fixed-term mortgage rates
RBC’s mortgage rates were all boosted by 20 basis points, up to 2.54 per cent (two-year rate), while 2.64 per cent (three-year rate), and 2.84 per cent (five-year rate).
On the road again
In August of 2016, Yvette was 27, single, overworked, living from pay to pay with zero savings. She sold all her belongings and currently lives in her Ford E150
