Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
January 23 2019
Wednesday January 23 2019. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: wants and needs, Frasier Institute School Rankings, 4th quarter KW house price report, moving scams, UW, Canada #2, North Korean beach vacation, Netflix…
Afternoons and coffee spoons
Have you ever grabbed a coffee mug out of the cabinet, looked at it and then put it back in order to grab a different one? If you are like me and most people, the answer is yes. That’s the difference between needs and wants.
I need a coffee cup, but I want that one.
We do it all the time, with everything, the clothes we put on, the lunch we order and the home we buy. Life is full of little and big choices.
But if your house was on fire, it wouldn’t matter which clothes you put on. You would grab whatever was nearest at hand. (You’d likely grab your cellphone too).
When the market was crazy hot a few years ago, when the prices seemed to be going up every month (they were) and there would be 12 offers on a house that just came on the market, there was urgency. The fear of missing out was high. Needs became more important than wants.
What’s interesting is that all of the buyers that I worked with over those months of hyperactivity, none of them feel like they made a mistake. They are all happy with their homes and with the prices that they paid.
So I guess what I’m saying is that urgency is a good thing. Without it we tend to overthink things when it really makes no difference.
If we were all minimalists, we wouldn’t have too many coffee cups to choose from, but the movement never talks about urgency and decision making.
A Cambridge elementary school has claimed the top spot in The Fraser Institute’s latest rankings.
- The Islamic School of Cambridge tied for the top spot among sixteen other elementary schools ranked by the Frasier Institute in Ontario.
- Kitchener however fell just below the Frasier Institute’ s provincial average, seeing a 5.7 score overall.
- When breaking down the Frasier Institute’s results by region, the city of Waterloo has a 6.2 out of 10 ranking with its schools. This is just above the provincial average of 6.0.
- See all the rankings at Frasier Institute
Home prices in Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge see strong appreciation in the fourth quarter of 2018
A survey released last week showed strong gains in home prices across Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge in the fourth quarter of 2018. During the period:
- the aggregate price of a home in the region rose 9.0 per cent year-over-year to $523,634.
- the median price of a two-storey home rose 9.3 per cent year-over-year to $557,444
- the price of a bungalow rose 7.9 per cent year-over-year to $472,752.
- the median price of a condominium rose 7.8 per cent year-over-year to $308,189.
Win a house for $25
An Alberta woman will give her $1.7M house to whoever writes her the best letter explaining how ownership of the house would change their life. A $25 fee is required to enter the contest.
Moving scams and some ways to avoid them
When my sister moved across town last year, it ended up costing her more than twice as much as originally agreed to and took the movers three days to eventually finish the job. She was scammed (by a well known mover). This article has some tips to avoid what happened to her
The University of Waterloo earns top-5 ranking for artificial intelligence
UW was also recognized for having one of the world’s top-30 Computer Science programs. It is home to the world’s largest collection of math and computer science talent, was just named “Canada’s Most Innovative University” for the 27th consecutive year.
Canada named 2nd most beautiful country in the world
British travel outlet, Rough Guides, asked their readers to vote on the most beautiful countries in the world and Canada came in second. For the second year in a row. Which country came in 1st? Click here for story.
In a related story: 2 Canadian destinations make The New York Times’ ’52 Places To Go’ list
Greetings from sunny North Korea
Kim Jong Un set to unveil giant seaside resort in bid to attract tourists. Travel advisories call for more than just sun block.
Chilling with Netflix
If you are like me, you have been spending a lot of time chilling with Netflix. Here are three things about Netflix you might want to know:
- Netflix now accounts for 10% of TV watching in the US, (Canada is likely higher). In the last ten years Netflix has not only changed the way most of us watch TV, but has changed the way movies are made.
- Bird Box was watched by 80 million households since it came out just before Christmas.
- Netflix is raising its prices. When I hear people complain about that I just shake my head remembering what poor quality (but high quantity) programming we used to pay the cable companies for.
Read more news here
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