Why is KW the #1 real estate market? Reddit responds.

Yesterday I banged out a quick 300-word post titled, “Why is Kitchener-Waterloo the #1 real estate market?” It was based on a Real Estate Wealth magazine survey of 500+ of its readers. There wasn’t really much in it. Just a top of mind kind of blog. I just gave my thoughts about why KW is seen by more investors (22%) than any other market as a good place to invest. In the post, I postulated that the GTA was likely too expensive and that Kingston likely attracts the university student rental investor.

Just speculating.

I got an email from an investor client who has purchased a few homes with me over the past couple of years. He was asking about the legality of basement kitchens (not usually legal) and mentioned that someone had posted the link to my article on Reddit – a social media site.

“Uh, oh”, I thought. I wrote back thanking him for the heads up and said, “That’s the first time anyone has posted one of my links. Can’t wait for the trolls to come out!”

It is likely good for my SEO. Reddit is a very popular social media site. I actually visit it every week or so to see what people are talking about on the local subreddits.

So it is nice getting the link but I won’t answer any of their claims or jabs or address any of their misinformed comments on the site. What good will that do? The best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them.

I’m a lurker.

Anonymous comments are silent to me. They mean nothing. I don’t hear them.

And really, Reddit is fake news and clickbait. Many Redditors get their thrills by seeing their link get clicked on and up-voted.

Looking at the current comments, I will address them here.

• I do think that our local market is a good place to buy real estate.
• I agree that the sample size of just over 500 is small.
• I agree that the poll itself is pretty useless.
• GTA investors blowing everyone local out of the water with “at least $50K over asking” happens sometimes but not because they have more money than brains, but because they’ve been playing the game longer than us. They wrote the rules and last year the locals learned them (or we got schooled, junior).
•  I don’t think a buyers market is the best market to buy into. Nothing in real estate is black and white. Would you buy a house in Elliot Lake after the mine closed? Would you buy a house in Calgary after the price of oil got cut in half? Those were both buyer’s markets.

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