This week in Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate – January 27, 2012
There was a lot of news about the housing market last week and all of it good. Well good but cautionary really.
House Prices
First of all house prices are expected to keep rising this year. According to a report by Royal Lepage, Prudential Real Estate’s sister company, Canada’s housing market will continue to be strong this year, with rising property values expected in all major markets.
The report predicts that prices will rise across to country by 2.8% by the end of 2012, following stronger gains last year.
In the fourth quarter of 2011, the average price of a standard two-storey home was $375,427, up 4.2% from a year earlier. The average rate of a detached bungalow was up in 2011 by 6.1% to $344,392, while condominiums gained 3.6% to $234,680.
“Widespread calls for a major real estate correction in 2012 simply can’t be justified,” Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper said in a statement. “The industry has significant momentum entering the year, and buoyed by the stimulative effect of very low interest rates, we expect the market to continue to expand.”
Mortgage rules
In the face of historically low interest rates, our federal government remains concerned that the real estate market is getting overheated. Our government is concerned that the housing market will over-inflate and the bubble will burst. If this happens, it would have a large negative impact on our AAA rated economy. As they did last year, they are looking at ways to tighten regulations, making it harder for individuals to qualify for loans. One of these measures are aimed at self-employed individuals (like myself) and how we self-disclose what we make when applying for a loan.
In the case of condominium buyers, the government is considering a proposal that would include 100% of the condo fees as debt. This would impact the Loan to Debt Ratio of the loan applicant.
Third best economy in Canada
The CIBC released a report that showed that Waterloo Region has the third best economy in Canada. The report attributes our success to our high tech sector, irregardless of what’s happening at RIM.
Housing activity, population growth, employment, and bankruptcy statistics were some of the variable measured for the report.
Agents of Change weekend activity
We’ll be holding an open house this Sunday from 2:00-4:00pm at 49 Cedarwoods Crescent, Unit 29. It’s a quiet condo townhouse complex right behind the Fairview Park Mall. Come on out and see the house. It’s nice. Meet us. We’re nice too.
Alasdair and I were holding a couple of open houses over this past weekend. There are a couple of things we learned and the impressions we got from our visitors that we’d like to share.
I was in the sauna at my club when one of the other members commented that he was waiting for the home prices to go down before buying his next house. I had to tell him that housing prices are not going down. They’re going up. I think maybe his problem was that he wasn’t paying attention to the local news or even perhaps the national news. You hear a lot of news about real estate prices, but most of that news is out of the states. And much of that isn’t good.
This open concept condominium townhouse is located minutes from the expressway (behind the Conestoga Mall). It features a walkout basement with a private fenced yard, large living room with beautiful new floor. The whole house has been painted recently.
Don’t miss your chance to live the high life in this exceptional, executive exquisite all-brick luxury townhome. With it’s high ceilings, vast and expansive room sizes, stained oak staircase, fabulous master bedroom ensuite with deep deep soaker tub, you’ll just love coming home and you won’t want to leave again, ever!