Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News

September 12 2018

Wednesday September 12 2018. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: van life, current real estate statistics, new in Uptown, open houses, eco-friendly homes, Vidyard, seller’s markets, East End London, small town Canada…

Van life

I’m back from a three-week (road)trek journey west and happy for the experience, and to be back. We drove through Moose Jaw, Fargo and got as far west as Golden BC, slept in Medicine Hat, and Wawa and as far south as Lovell Wyoming where we stayed in a free city campsite with hot showers. We stayed in hotel parking lots and at a winery and on a prairie campsite devoid of trees and then up in the Alberta mountains surrounded by them.

Living out of a vehicle that is only three-feet longer than my Honda is actually quite easy. You become a minimalist. Life becomes simpler. If something breaks, you drive your home and park in front of the Canadian tire and go in for tools and hardware. If you don’t feel like stopping, you keep going. If you’re hungry, you stop for lunch and then open up the kitchen and make soup and sandwiches or rice and veggies.

It is interesting to see how unimportant most things are. That is the real appeal of van living.

The current state of local real estate

August home sales were down a little compared to July but up 4.8 per cent compared to August of last year. A total of 505 residential properties sold in August.

The average sale price of all residential properties sold in August increased 11.5 per cent to $493,358 compared to the same month a year ago. Detached homes sold for an average price of $583,564 an increase of 13 per cent compared to August of last year. During this same period, the average sale price for an apartment style condominium was $335,827 an increase of 14.1 per cent. Townhomes and semis sold for an average of $350,803 (up 4 per cent) and $401,011 (up 13.6 per cent) respectively.

The median price of all residential properties sold last month was up 10.4 per cent compared to August of last year at $458,000, and the median price of a detached home during the same period increased 18.1 per cent to $543,450.

The average days it took to sell a home in August was 28 days, compared to 26 days in August 2017.

Read the full report here

24-storey building approved for Uptown Waterloo

Waterloo city councillors have approved an amendment to their official plan that would allow for the construction of a 24-storey building on the corner of King Street N. and Bridgeport Road E.

The development at 70 King St. N., where a former post office currently stands, would include two condo towers.

Does An Open House Make Sense When Marketing A Home For Sale?

An open house may have been a great marketing tool prior to the internet, but with the current trend of homebuyers looking for homes online an open house does not necessarily help with the sale of a home. By focusing on online marketing home sellers are better able to take advantage of where most of the interested buyers are currently looking.

Is Your Home Eco-Friendly?

Will you be making upgrades to your home? If so, then be eco-friendly –> Go Green. Developing an environmental friendly home can be less complicated than you think. Just a few changes, and some energy efficient material is all you need.

Here are 4 Energy Efficient Upgrades that Homebuyers Love

In Tech news…

Kitchener-based Vidyard is powering HubSpot’s new video solution. Vidyard is really a local start up to watch. (No pun intended).

Infographic: Canada’s top buyers and seller’s markets.

From Burlington to Windsor, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Ottawa all have a seller’s market. Only Toronto and Niagara Region do not (they have a balanced market). This infographic shows only Newfoundland has a buyers market. God bless your cotton socks.

EastEnders

Here are some fabulous photos of London’s East End in the 1960s and 70s.

Small towns

When driving west and back again, I was surprised just how small towns like Fargo, Regina and Thunder Bay really are. They are small, but have most of the stuff bigger centres have — except it seems that the parking lots are bigger and the roadways wider.

In northern Ontario, every second roadside motel was closed down and boarded up. I wondered why and suppose the mining and forestry isn’t what it once was so people have moved away either out west or into southern Ontario. I don’t know. It’s a little sad.

In some places, the Transcanada Highway goes straight through town (like Regina) and others (like Portage Le Prairie) there is a go-around. I preferred the straight through. It’s fun to see the subtle differences in the larger centres and the larger difference in the smaller centres. We spent the night in Portage Le Prairie. It was a charming little place. We would have missed it completely otherwise.

I’ve long said that I could never live in a small town, but now that I have spent a little more time in more of them, I’m thinking I could.