March 20, 2019 Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News

March Break

Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News 

March 20, 2019

Wednesday March 20, 2019. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: the best time to list, small town Baden, stress testing, Flintstone house, home selling mistakes, e-signatures, Canadian home buyers, Saigon lunch, driverless car commutes…  

The best week to list your home is quickly approaching

Last week was of course March Break when things slow down around town, when coworkers are away on holiday with the kids, when Spring is just around the corner but not quite here yet. Holidays are often noticeably quiet in terms of new listings, showings and all other real estate related activity and this year was no different. Some real estate agents ask their clients to hold off on listing properties until after holidays and some home sellers use the March Break week to get their homes market ready. So when is the best time to list?  

You can take this statistic with as many grains of salt as you wish but according to the National Association of Realtors (US), during the week of March 31 to April 6, homes are listed, on average, for 6 per cent more than at the beginning of the year. Homes for sale that week also tend to fetch 14 percent more views on realtor.com than at other times of the year. Further, listed homes sell about six days faster. The homes also see less competition that week; the highest number of homes tend to go up for sale in late spring, the study notes. 

The small town charm of Baden

As someone who grew up in small towns (Kitimat, Thamesford, and St. Lawerence) I can identify with this story about Baden. Like a lot of the small towns and villages surrounding the borders of Waterloo Region, Baden seems to be prime for development, but it still holds on to that small town charm

What you need to know about the mortgage stress test in 2019

Getting a mortgage can be tough, especially with the price of houses these days. But over the past year-and-a-half or so, borrowers have had an even tougher time securing a mortgage all thanks to the mortgage stress test.

Astroturf, dinosaurs, and the Great Gazoo pushed the neighbours over the edge

A small Bay-area town just renewed an ongoing conflict with one of its strangest landmarks. Nestled in the shrubbery along the California’s I-280, the orange and purple bulges of the “Flintstone House” are a beloved milestone to commuters and a dreadful blight to neighbours.

Home seller mistakes you definitely want to avoid

Home selling season is upon us so let’s review the top ten home selling mistakes and how to avoid them. Here they are.

Docusign expands into Canada

DocuSign, is a San Francisco-based company that provides electronic signature technology. It recently announced the opening of its first Canadian headquarters. For anyone buying or selling property in the future, chances are good that at least part of the transaction will include electronic signatures. I’ve been using DocuSign for years. You’ll love it. 

What do Canadian home buyers really want?

There are some interesting findings in this article. If you are a home seller, find out if you are in the middle of the market. If you are a home buyer, find out if you want what everyone else also wants

Abandoned apartments transform into a vertical urban foodcourt in Vietnam

It’s not often that you can choose from dozens of cafes situated high above a crowded urban plaza, gazing out at the landscape from a table on the balcony, all for the price of a coffee. In Ho Chi Minh City, such views come cheap thanks to a highly unusual reuse project transforming a 1960s apartment complex into a sort of vertical food court. 

Slowing the revolution

I was reading an article about how driverless cars will impact where we live in the future. The article argues that driverless cars will lead to more people moving out of the cities and into the countryside and to far-flung satellite towns and cities. Essentially, if you can work comfortably during your commute, the article argues you won’t mind the commute. 

It makes sense, but it won’t happen.

I remember two decades ago reading that when high-speed internet access and everything that came with improved communication methods, we’d all be working from home. Sure more and more people are working remotely, but it is still the exception, not the rule.

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