Toronto buyers

Toronto buyers

There has been some talk in Kitchener Waterloo real estate about Toronto buyers changing things up here in KW. They are often portrayed as being aggressive overbidders with bags full of money, shaking things up for us dull-witted country cousins.

As the GTA gets too expensive for most buyers, they are moving further afield to find suitable homes for their families. Also true, Kitchener Waterloo is booming with young tech jobs, improving transportation links to Toronto and heck, it’s a pretty sweet place to live. And what’s more, with jobs being what they are, people working from home and that sort of thing, there are Toronto second and third time home buyers cashing out in Toronto and buying here.

“Let’s sell our house in Etobicoke and live mortgage free in Beechwood,” they say.

“Great idea”

It happens.

Torontonians can’t be blamed for our bidding wars. They are only one of the many moving parts of our changing real estate market.

So, the rules about real estate are always changing and we here in KW have adopted some Toronto rules this year. We used to say, in relation to real estate that whatever happens in Toronto will happen here three years later. I think that has been shortened to two or maybe one year later now. We are becoming a satellite city of the Big T.O.  That’s the fact, Jack.

 

Torontonians win the bidding wars

Torontonians might win the bidding wars because they know the rules better than we do. They are grand masters, all flash and shock and awe. We are novices, newbies and naifs.

Also Toronotians are very decisive. They don’t have time or inclination to think it over. A decade and a half ago when I was selling telephone book advertising, we worked the KW market, then the Guelph market and then the Toronto market. In Toronto, at the end of a sales meeting, you almost always got a “yes” or a “no” and rarely a “I want to think it over”.

So, KW, lets not blame Toronto. Lets up our game, eh?

 

Edit: For the record, I love working with homebuyers from Toronto and other people relocating to the region. I had a comment just a moment ago that “I don’t like working with buyer’s from Toronto”. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hope people relocating from Toronto and other parts of Canada and the world feel comfortable and confident that I will help them best understand our local homes, schools and neighbourhoods. It is what I love to do.

 

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