Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
May 29, 2019
Wednesday May 29, 2019. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: boondockers, apartment towers, exurbs, pets, small issues, dimensions, weed, world music map, one-star reviews…
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Small world and big town
Last week I wrote briefly about Boondockers Welcome, a platform I use when travelling in the RV that connects me to hosts with driveways where I can park overnight. After publishing last week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News, I got an email from the site. Turns out that they are local! Small world. I never would have known.
I was meeting with my tax accountant last week getting ready to file last year’s taxes. He told me that he can’t go anywhere anymore without bumping into someone he knows. I’m the same way, Costco, Uptown, Home Depot, Schneider’s flats, Waterloo Park… I almost always bump into someone I know. Kitchener-Waterloo is the biggest small town I know.
2
Big plans for Erb at Westmount
As part of a massive plan to build 1,014 apartments just west of Waterloo’s uptown core, Waterloo council has been asked to approve apartment towers at up to twice the permitted height on Erb Street West. The proposal to redevelop lands around the Westmount Place plaza at Westmount Road, Erb Street West and Dietz Avenue, calls for six towers of at least 11 storeys, the tallest reaching 25 storeys, plus a five-storey building.
3
Appreciating exurbs
There is a growing number of first-time homebuyers relocating long distances to escape the high cost of big-city housing. Eight of the 10 fastest appreciating Canadian exurbs are in Ontario, led by areas surrounding Windsor, London, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Kingston, Niagara/St. Catharines, Hamilton, Belleville/Trenton and Guelph.
4
How do pets reduce the value of your home?
Expect a huge cleaning bill or a lower sale price. By one estimate, for every dollar a potential seller will need to spend to clean or remediate a pet problem, they’ll reduce their bid price by $2 to $3. For example, if it would cost $10,000 to replace the floors the buyer will reduce their offer by $20,000 to $30,000.
5
Petty issues that can sabotage a home sale.
Here are six little things to take a quick look at before you list your home for sale.
6
How big is your sofa?
If you’ve ever wonders if your sofa will fit in your new living room, Dimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world.
7
Grow your own weed they said. It will be easy.
Cannabis has been legal in Canada since October 17, 2018. As part of a fun experiment, Globe and Mail journalist Ian Brown attempts his own miniature grow op in a sealed hydroponic container called a Grobo, a Waterloo startup.
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What in the world are you listening to?
This site plays the #1 song in 3000 cities around the world.
9
The joy of one-star reviews
I was reading this article titled “the 36 best one-star Amazon reviews of Mrs. Dalloway”, a book I’ve never read and have no wish to read. But I noticed that books I have read like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye also received lots of one-star reviews on Amazon.
And as someone who loves browsing comments on Amazon (more than I actually like buy anything there), I take a lot of interest in what was said in the review comments and I always try to get a sense of who is leaving the comments and reviews and why: Who are these people? Can I read between the lines and figure out if their comments are relevant or really dumb? Do they have an axe to grind? Are they trolls living life in a long patch of misery? Would I agree with any portion of what they say? Are they specific or vague? Are they real or fake? Are they useful and informative or are they worthless?
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What to read next:
What did your Realtor do before becoming a Realtor?
In last week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: boondocking, unsafe building, airbnb investing, real estate photos, neighbourhood turnoffs, auto tech, ketchup, Taiwan motorbikes, driveway happiness, top agents…
