Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
November 28 2018
Wednesday November 28 2018. In this week’s Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News: news, 2nd to Charlotte, bumper-tapping to Guelph, selling Electrohome plant, percentages, Black Friday, prices up 44%, airports, no news is…
End of season news
So here we are already at the end of November. It was a weird year for real estate. Start and stop, start and stop, like heading south on the Conestoga Parkway at 5pm, we got there eventually. A lot of homes got bought and sold. Prices went up. Next week I will be away on a little holiday and then we will be entering the holiday season. So as the old saying goes, ‘no news is good news’. I’m taking a break from this weekly real estate news update.
Merry Christmas.
See you in the new year!
Our community (Kitchener-Waterloo) is rich and smart
I’m not sure why but the Toronto Sun did a story about living in Kitchener-Waterloo, and that was nice. There were some interesting facts in there too. Like this one. Kitchener-Waterloo’s tech scene is now the second fastest growing market in all of North America, just behind Charlotte, North Carolina.
Bumper-tapping to Guelph continues as plans for a new Highway 7 delayed again
The provincial government is confirming it’s doing a review of the funding for the long delayed four lane project. In the last two decades, the province has already spent over $100 million on studies, assessments and planning.
Kitchener will try to force sale of Electrohome site
Kitchener has slashed the asking price on the site of the former Electrohome plant, signalling to prospective buyers that the city is open to innovative redevelopment ideas.
What percentage of conditional deals fall through?
Last week I had a quick look at some of real estate’s most unusual questions about neighbours and graveyards and smoking…
Shopify merchants made $1.5 Billion USD on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
In the wake of this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, ecommerce platform Shopify has released their stats surrounding digital purchases in the time period spanning these two dates.The company noted that $83.09 USD was the average shopping cart order price, and 66 percent of sales from Shopify merchants were made on mobile (compared to 34 percent made on desktop).
Canadian real estate prices up over 44% over the past 5 years
Price growth in Canada is now close to target inflation, but over the past 5 years they’ve increased by over 44%. After making such huge gains, price growth is tapering to much lower levels. The annual gains of 2.33% in October is higher than the month before, but way below the 9.1% we saw last year.
On the road again. And in the air again
Travel is pretty smooth these days. Think about it. We get so anxious if we are delayed only an hour. OMG. As I take off on a little holiday away, I thought this might story might be timely — 9 airports more interesting than the one you’re stuck in.
No news is no news
At the top of this post I said that ‘no news is good news’. That is not exactly true of course. We need news. We should be connected to what is going on in our communities. And we have to have some sense of how we fit into the big picture. We are living in a society after all. When I read that more than 100 news outlets have closed in Ontario in the past ten years, I am a little dismayed.
On the one hand, it is wonderful that no longer have to rely on generic ‘mass media’ with their specific points of view and agendas. But on the other hand, as the internet allows us to ‘find our tribes’ we have lost some of our connection to our local community. You can’t stop progress and we are living in a time of great change.
