January 10 2018 Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News

January 10

January 10 2018

Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News

 

Wednesday January 10 2018. In the news: a kitchen reno, year end real estate statistics, 2018 outlook, time-capsule houses, the Berlin Wall, advanced house cleaning, a short history of granite, Akademgorodok

Love it or leave it

kitchen renoI got started on a kitchen renovation. My jobs are the easy ones. The demolition with a trip to the landfill. Then paint the ceiling and ready the room for the professionals. They were supposed to come in later today and install the cabinets, but then they called yesterday and said that the doors weren’t ready yet. Sheesh, we only ordered three months ago. We’ve used these guys several times over the past 20 years. But things change. Business and businesses change. You can’t always depend on the dependable, rely on the reliable.

Maybe my expectations are too high.

Detached Home Prices In Kitchener Waterloo Up 21.5% In 2017

This can’t be right…

  • The average list price of all properties sold in 2017 increased 20.7 percent to $467,513 compared to 2016.
  • Detached houses sold for an average price of $549,046, an increase of 21.5 percent contrasted to 2016.
  • During this same period, the typical price for an condominium apartment was $271,940 for a rise of 18.3 percent.
  • Townhouses and semis sold for approximately $353,692 (up 23.6 percent) and $378,275 (up 25.9 per cent) respectively.

What to expect in 2018 – predicting the real estate outlook for Kitchener Waterloo

Interest rates will rise, as will home prices. Condos will continue to be the hot properties. Out-of-towners will come to town. Renovators will renovate. Here are the predictions for 2018.

Word of the week – time capsule house

I sold one last year, a time capsule house. It was a wonderful experience but not a unique one. Time capsule houses exist on every street, every street that is older than 15 years. That (15 years) seems to be the amount to time it takes to go from modern and fashionable to yesterday’s news.

My feeling is that it does not matter, it makes no difference if a home is 15 years or 50 years out of date — either way you have to accept that you are living in the past or renovate.

Personally, I love the retro house. I love blue shag carpets and avocado bathroom fixtures. Give me a single owner home in Beechwood with formica countertops and basement panelling, linoleum floors, swag lights…Here is the kind of place I mean.

What are some things that most people forget to clean?

  1. Refrigerator coils
  2. Ceiling fans
  3. Baseboards
  4. Throw pillows
  5. Shower heads
  6. Inside your dishwasher, washer and dryer

Dammit granite, I love you

We have a tendency to think that things have always been as they are now, but if you’ve been out touring older homes you will certainly see that granite countertops are relatively new. Granite was first introduced (to North American kitchens) in 1986. It was considered a down to earth choice as the other high end material was marble.

Marble? When was the last time you saw marble? Never?

Akademgorodok: Siberia’s Silicon Valley

Tucked away in a remote forest of birch and pine in the heart of Siberia, 3,000 km away from Moscow, at a place where winters are six months long with temperatures going down to -40C and summer season is swaddled with insects, is a city built for scientists and scientists. This frozen tundra is better suited for polar bears than to scientific ventures, but Nikita Khrushchev felt the distance from Moscow was essential to ensure that the nation’s sharpest clinical minds could function with each other on fundamental study away from the prying eyes of bureaucracy. This is Akademgorodok, or “Academic Community”– the Soviet Union’s answer to America’s Silicon Valley.

CREA Updates 2018 Forecast Due To New Harder Mortgages Rules

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) recently cut back on its home sales predictions for 2018 due to the tougher mortgage regulations that came into force on New Year’s day. CREA now predicts that this year there will be a 5.3 % decrease in sales of housing units countrywide to 486,600 units . The revised forecast is 8,500 units less than the previous forecast. National average housing unit prices are also expected to drop by 1.4 % to $503,100.

Locally we will see predicted price growth of 2-6%

Atomic Blonde and the Berlin Wall

Flying back from BC a couple of weeks ago, I watched Atomic Blonde, the story of an undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents. It was a great action movie. The music was awesome.

I mention this here because as of one day last week, the Berlin wall has been down longer that it was up. A pivotal moment. A timespan worth noting.

Noted.

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