Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate News
Wednesday July 22, 2020
Wednesday July 22, 2020. In this weeks Kitchener-Waterloo Real Estate News: Open Houses, bike lanes, speed limits, fleeing the city, airbnb, first time homebuyer’s incentive, top tech talent, rents fall, home prices double, data driven decision making…
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Stage 3 – Open House for 50 people!
Last week as we in Ontario entered Stage Three of our Covid-19 reopening, the real estate staple, the perennial favourite – the weekend Open House was announced to be allowed again. What’s more, up to 50 people are allowed in your house for sale. 50 people! I hope this doesn’t happen.
It is nice that we are reopening. Not everyone is as antisocial as this Realtor. Many people miss restaurants and beer houses. Some people may even miss attending a weekend Open House or ten. But as I have written many times before here on this blog I’m not a big supporter of Open Houses. Although, they are a great way to demonstrate to the home seller that you are doing everything you can to sell their home, and although too they are a good way for Realtors to market themselves, I don’t believe that they are a necessary part of the home selling process. They are certainly not worth catching a bad case of Covid-19 for.
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Bike lanes and neighbourhood speed limits
There are silver linings to the Coronavirus pandemic. In terms of real estate, speed limits and other traffic calming measures are making neighbourhoods nicer, quieter and safer places to live. Temporary bike lanes along major roads are another perk. Not only do they slow speeding traffic, they encourage and promote biking on our city streets, and that is a great thing.
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Torontonians are fleeing the city for cheaper homes, more green space and a balanced life
The pandemic has “supercharged” a trend that’s seeing urbanites sell their downtown condos for larger homes in places like Guelph, Kitchener, Prince Edward County and Haliburton.
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Zillbnb —Why Airbnb and Zillow should merge
Airbnb and Zillow are Yin and Yang: Airbnb is short-term, Zillow is long-term. Zillow is a scientist, Airbnb is a designer. Airbnb gives Zillow unmatched iBuying capabilities, and Zillow gives Airbnb SEO firepower.
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Do you qualify?
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Waterloo Region recognized as a hot spot for top tech talent
Included in a recent study is a ranking of the ‘Next 25’ up-and-coming markets, and Waterloo Region tops the list, with Quebec City at No. 6, Edmonton No. 9 and Halifax No. 12.
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Rents in Canada on three-month downward trend, but not in Kitchener
COVID-19 continues to put downward pressure on the rental market nationally in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina, while they are up annually in Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, London, Kitchener and Victoria.
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Canadian real estate prices grew over 29x the rate of US home prices
Canadian home prices have increased 88% since 2005, almost doubling in 15 years. To contrast, US home prices have increased just 2.9% over the same period.
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Data driven decision making
David Letterman once said, “There’s no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.”
I tend to work a lot with software engineers and other techies, nerds and geeks. They are my favourite clients to work with. They tend to make data driven decisions. And I tend to try to make sense of the market. It’s a good fit.
It is doubtful that someday we will have a predictive analysis model to help us buy a house in a competitive market. There are just too many variables. But we can start making good data driven decisions with these four questions.
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Further Reading:
Kitchener-Waterloo real estate news from last month
5 mistakes first time homebuyers make
Relocating?
