Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
May 23 2018
Wednesday May 23 2018. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: constant change, browse, borrow, build, mortgage renewal, deals gone south, Sportlogiq, balanced markets, jobs leaving cities.
In step with the times
There is an expression that I don’t really like. I don’t like it but (or because) it’s true. It has been around along time. “The only thing constant is change”. The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Heriaclitus, or “Heri The Obscure” sometimes called the “Weeping Philosopher” was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the fundamental essence of the universe, as stated in the famous saying,”No man ever steps in the same river twice”.
So the local real estate market has changed again, slower in May after a slowish April, but a busy March and February. It’s weird. It’s hard to predict. It’s frustrating for sellers and for buyers. And for agents, we are always careful where we step.
Browse. Borrow. Build.
I love the idea of the sharing economy. Why does every shed need a lawnmower? Why do I have to buy a tool (maybe a power washer or a skill saw) that I may need to use once a year. Well, not anymore. The Kitchener Waterloo Library of Things is here to help. Browse camping equipment, tools, gardening tools, cooking items and craft supplies. What a great idea.
Mortgage up for renewal?
Around 47 per cent of all existing mortgages will need to be refinanced this year, up from the 25 to 35 per cent range in a typical year. If you can save yourself 30, 40, 50 basis points, it’s going to save you thousands of dollars over the next five-year term.
Deals falling through
I keep a spreadsheet of homes that my clients express interest in. Currently, about 14% of the houses on my spreadsheet have not sold. That is actually low. A few years ago I went through recent histories and found that 37% of homes do not sell, at least they didn’t the first time round. Maybe they were resisted with new MLS numbers and subsequently sold. Anyway, this article from the UK caught my interest. More than a third of real estate deals fall through in the UK.
Selling a home is fairly easy
Let’s face it. It is not rocket science. But it is a little harder than it might appear before you begin. Most things are a little harder and more time consuming than you think, especially the first time. With that in mind, if you are getting ready to sell, here are somethings that seem obvious but tend to surprise home sellers
Montreal sports tech firm sets up shop in Kitchener
Sportlogiq uses standard camera feeds to collect data and extract analytics. This data allows teams to study areas which wouldn’t have been available in the past to the naked eye. If a specific player plays in a certain way, they are able to highlight that using the data.
These three provinces’ housing markets have been destabilized this year — here’s why
The new stress test has lowered sales activity and destabilized market balance for housing markets in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador Provinces. Currently the national sales-to-new-listings ratio sits at 53.7 per cent, up from 52.6 per cent in March. A ratio of between 40 and 60 per cent is considered balanced, with readings above and below indicating sellers and buyers markets, respectively.
Some jobs are getting priced out of cities
Earlier this year I was reading an article about living in Silicon Valley and the cost of doing home repairs or getting emergency service. Carpenters, plumbers and other tradesmen cannot afford to live in the Valley and hence any service call comes to the homeowner with an added travel service charge. This article starts in Toronto and gives us some interesting statistics about missing job categories in major cities.
On constant change
Now that it appears that we are, or someday soon will be, in a balanced real estate market, the marketing of homes is again changing, the power again is shifting. Some agents who specialize in doing certain things in a certain way will either succeed or fail based on how they do what they do and how that matches what the market needs and wants. It is interesting to watch and be part of, the shifting sands of the real estate world. New brokerages sprout, new agents enter. Old brokerage shrink and merge. Teams form. Teams fold. Top agents fade away. New kings and queens are crowned. I was talking with an agent last week. He said, “you never know. One agent in the office might be busy as all get up and another is having his/her worst year ever”. It sounds kind of fatalist, and it’s not. It is just the way it seems to be.
