Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
July 11 2018
Wednesday July 11 2018. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: the party is over, sales down prices up, the boringness of buying, sideways investing, trade war affects condo prices, slowing growth, looking for a good plumber…
Playing it one more time
In a Talking Heads song they sing that there is a party and everyone is there, everyone will leave at exactly the same time… and then when this party is over, it will start again. It will not be any different. It will be exactly the same. I think of this because in the summertime, the real estate market is slower, fewer people are selling and fewer people are out looking but when you do an open house, you’ll get more than ten groups of people through (four groups is considered a success) and when you find a house you love, you will have to compete with two other buyers and the place with go for way over asking.
It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, could be so much fun.
Sales down. Prices up.
Here are the June KW home sales statistics
- Sales were down 12.8 per cent compared to May
- Sales were down 15.6 per cent compared to last year’s June
- 604 residential properties sold in June compared to 716 the same time last year.
- On a year-to-date basis there have been 3,096 home sales during the first half of the year, a decrease of 19.1 per cent.
- 604 units that sold last month is in line with the ten-year average for June.
Residential sales in June included:
- 365 detached (down 21.2 per cent compared to June 2017),
- 151 condominium units (up 6.3 per cent)
- 38 semi-detached homes (down 29.6 per cent)
- 43 freehold townhouses (down 15.7 per cent)
And prices:
- The average sale price of all residential properties sold in June increased 5.2 per cent to $489,584 compared to the same month a year ago.
- Detached homes sold for an average price of $575,003 an increase of 7 per cent compared to June of last year.
- The average sale price for an apartment style condominium was $314,180, an increase of 13.2 per cent.
- Townhomes and semis sold for an average of $378,562 (up 10.8 per cent) and $391,830 (up 2.9 per cent) respectively.
- The median price of all residential properties sold last month was up 5.9 per cent compared to June of last year at $450,000
- The median price of a detached home during the same period increased 9.5 per cent to $520,000.
Listings?
- 850 residential properties were listed, down 21.5 per cent compared to June of 2017
- The number of active residential listings on the KWAR’s MLS® System to the end of June totalled 1,030, which is 11 per cent higher than June of last year but still significantly below the historical (2007-2016) ten-year average of 1,728 listings for June.
These are the three Ontario housing markets to watch, according to experts
- Hamilton
- Waterloo Region
- Ottawa
The 3 most boring parts of the home buying process
There are many unglamorous parts of buying a home—some of which many consider downright boring. Do the words “financial due diligence” make your eyelids feel heavy? Yeah, me too.
How real estate investing can go sideways
Novice investors can be overwhelmed by market fluctuations, maintenance costs and even tax considerations that can turn can’t-miss investments into money-losing albatrosses.
Canadian house price growth is slowing – and that’s a good thing
Canadian house prices are rising at their slowest pace in almost nine years, reports RBC Economics. The national benchmark price was up by just one per cent year-over-year in May, and prices were below last year’s levels in many centres including Toronto.
Condo buyers might pay the price in Canada-U.S. trade war
Condos are expected to be the most deeply affected sector, as the tariffs will significantly impact the prices of structural steel products like rebar and industrial building components.
Where have all the plumbers gone?
On my company’s internal communications page, beside the regular stuff about new listings and open houses, news and questions about the new lockboxes, there is always requests for contractors, as in, “can anyone recommend a good plumber?” or “who can I tell my client to call to help install a bathroom fan” — at least once a week.
Times change.
There was a time a decade and a half ago when it seemed that the region was awash with contractors and handymen. Back then, much of the industry had been closed down in the 1990s and I think many skilled workers had become contractors. Now it seems that the old are retiring and no one is filling the need. It took me three years to find someone to come out and rebuild my front porch.
Also, at least in some neighbourhoods around the region, there is a renovation boom happening. People are doing some major renovations so the little jobs that contractors do are getting pushed aside, or so it seems, no one wants to do them.
