Click play to watch:

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This Kitchener condo complex is well located near Fairview Park Mall in the south end of town, and has easy access to the 401 and the expressway into Kitchener Waterloo.

The condominiums were built in 1991 and are in very good shape, and the grounds around the condos is kid friendly.  There is a city park adjacent too.

So, what are the recent selling prices of condos here? Lets look at sales in 2009 and 2010:

The unit # shows us where the condo is located. Units 1-3 are basement level, 4-7 are on the main floor, and 8-11 are upper floor. The main and upper floor units have balconies off the living room.

If you own a condo here, we have buyers actively looking. 

Our firm, Keller Williams, represented 5 of the last 11 buyers purchasing in the complex, and we’d love to sell your condo too.

For more information on condos for sale in Kitchener or any other real estate questions,  contact Benjamin Bach @ Benjamin@BenjaminBach.com, or call me at 519-772-4376

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– a client who wanted to invest in a condo this weekend (2nd unit in this complex that sold inside 3 days too)

Homes and condo’s are moving very quickly in KW these days – our clients are involved in a multiple offer situations fairly regularly on smaller properties (condos, 5 bedroom student rental houses etc), and we’re even seeing multiple offers on apartment buildings that are in good shape, well rented and fairly priced.

So far in 2010, 56 homes have sold in 3 days on market or less, 144 residential properties have sold in less than 7 days, and 357 have sold in inside of two weeks (note: these Days on Market times include days where the property was tied up with a conditional offer, and due diligence periods).

That means over 32% of homes sold in 2010 were listed on the MLS for less than 14 days (note: a small % of these homes may have been relisted)

The Record has some more insight:

It appears that homebuyers are trying to get a jump on the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which goes into effect July 1 and will boost the cost of buying a home. But the biggest factor sparking the surge in sales is historically low interest rates, said Ted Scharf, president of the Kitchener-Waterloo board.

“Consumers are taking advantage of current interest rates now before they are predicted to rise this summer,” Scharf said in a news release.

The Bank of Canada plans to keep the key bank rate at 0.25 per cent through June. However, in the wake of a report Monday that the Canadian economy is growing more rapidly than forecasted, economists say borrowing rates may increase sooner and rise more aggressively than had been expected.

With the strong sales, there was another double-digit increase in prices last month. The average sale price in Kitchener and Waterloo rose 12.2 per cent to $276,891; in Cambridge, it rose 14.3 per cent to $280,996.

Strong demand for homes in higher prices ranges contributed to the increases. For example, in Kitchener and Waterloo there were 75 sales in the $300,000 to $350,000 price range, an increase of 150 per cent from a year earlier.

Leave me a comment below with any questions, and please contact me for more information at 519-772-4376 or via email at Benjamin@BenjaminBach.com

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Monthly/Yearly Stats February 2010

Kitchener-Waterloo:

There were 30 commercial transactions in February, a 150% increase over the 12 transaction done in Feb 2009

Year to date, there have been 54 commercial properties sold in 2010, vs 34 to this point in 2009

In terms of value of those transactions, February 2010 saw $11,538,111 transacted vs $3.27 million in Feb 2009

On the supply side, 118 new commercial properties came on the market, including units available for lease. This is a contraction of 13% from last February, when 137 units came on the market.

For specific questions about the market, and what properties in your area are trading at, email me at Benjamin@BenjaminBach.com or call me at 519-772-4376

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We’re seeing some properties selling for $10,000+ above list price in multiple offer situations; 

There are units and buildings available that are good real estate investors, ranging from $125,000 to several million dollars.  Contact me for full details, and a cash flow & return on investment analysis

If you are looking to buy, sell or invest, send me an email or give me a call.

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Record home sales capping 2009 due to supply and demand, not bubble

By Sunny Freeman, The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Record home sales last month are based on low supply and high demand and are more likely to drop off this year than inflate a housing bubble that could threaten a fragile recovery, economists say.

A Canadian Real Estate Association report released Friday said December and the 2009 fourth quarter were the best periods on record for home resales, while prices also rose sharply from their year-earlier levels.

…

A bubble occurs when prices increase without any sound underlying fundamentals, he explained, and that’s not the case in Canada’s housing market, which is closely tied to changing interest rates and economic fundamentals.

“We still do have a relatively tight supply situation and exceptionally low interest rates and a mild recovery in the economy, so there are a lot of good reasons why home prices are rising.”

“What we’re seeing is almost textbook recovery,” he said. “The speed of the recovery is mind-boggling, the fact that housing is leading the recovery is really not a surprise… it’s exactly what you’d expect to happen.”

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday he does not see a housing bubble yet, but he noted the government has many tools at its disposal — from raising down payment requirements on insured mortgages, to lowering amortization periods and urging the banks to be more cautious in their lending — to prevent such a thing from happening.

“We don’t want to have a group of house purchasers who purchased houses now at insured mortgages at relatively low rates who would not be able to manage them if rates were to increase later on,” Flaherty said in an interview with Business News Network, a cable TV business channel in Toronto.

“I’ve looked at the numbers with CMHC,” he added. “We’re monitoring it. I do not see evidence of a bubble right now, but we’re going to keep watching it. There are some steps we can take that we will take if it’s necessary.”

The association said 27,744 units were sold across Canada in December, up 72 per cent from the same month in 2008. The year-earlier period saw the lowest sales in a decade in the wake of a global credit crunch and the start of the recession in Canada.

…

Klump believes the market will balance out in 2010 because consumer demand will be met with a supply side rise as the number of new homes increases and cautious homeowners become confident about selling, which will add more homes on the market and help drive prices down.

Porter said Friday’s report signals that Canadians have regained their confidence in the economy and the surge in demand is beginning to be met with a serious supply response, citing a notable uptick in December housing starts.

“Builders had been very cautious and they’re only now starting to crank up their output again, but even so, the comeback in new housing starts has been much more modest than the rebound we’ve seen in sales,” he said. “And people who own homes have also been a little reluctant to put their house up for sale because of the broader uncertainty that we’ve seen.”

He said that the demand in housing was most pronounced in B.C. and Ontario, where home buyers might be hoping to beat the introduction of the HST, the harmonized sales tax which is set to replace provincial taxes in those provinces later this year.

As we talked about last week (Few more quick stats on the ‘09 Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate Market) 2009 was a very busy year for sales of homes on the KW real estate board’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS), with ‘09 being the area’s second busiest year ever behind 2007.  The second and third quarter of 2009 were the busiest ever on record, as mentioned in What happened in Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate in ‘09?.

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WATERLOO REGION – Home builders in Waterloo Region ended 2009 on a strong note with housing starts rising for the third month in a row in December.

Builders poured foundations for 195 housing units in the final month of last year, up from 129 in December 2008, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said today.

They started 122 single-detached homes, up from 89 a year earlier.

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2009 was an interesting year to be buying, selling, and brokering investment real estate and apartment buildings.

The turbulence in the global credit markets put a halt on a lot of lending, especially mortgages for student housing and ‘non AAA’ multi-family property.  When CMHC stopped insuring loans on ‘student housing,’ many lending institutions and banks stopped lending against those assets, since without CMHC insurance the loans were harder to sell on the secondary market. 

There were 148 Multi Family & apartment building  sales on MLS or $94 million volume in 2009, which is down 21.7% from last year.

While volume was off more than 20% from 2008, the value of Multi Family sales was down just 2% this year, reflecting a number of larger sales.

Specifically, there were nine apartment buildings, student rental towers and townhouse complexes that closed for over $1,000,000 in ‘09 on the KW MLS, including a $28 million dollar tower on King Street in Waterloo that was purchased by investors represented by our firm, Keller Williams in Kitchener.

In addition to a lack of financing, another reason that sales were down last year was that buyer’s were looking for higher cap rates, while sellers still wanted top dollar.  In Canada very few owners of Multi Family properties are ‘distressed’ and need to sell like we sometimes see in the US; that means they have cash flow coming in, rental income from their tenants, and can often afford to wait for a buyer to recognize the value and reach an agreement on price and terms.

There were 398 Multi Family listings processed through the MLS in 09 down 22%

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All around signs appear to be brighter than they were this time last year – banks are profitable, confidence is up, employment is on the upswing lately, and the housing market is moving. Ottawa’s Centre for the Study of Living Standards reports shows that consumption has grown in “leaps and bounds” from $30,000* per person in 1981 to $50,000* in 2008. That’s per person, with the average Canadian family being 2.37 people. That brings consumption per family to $118,500 for the average family.

The upcoming Olympics are expected to provide a beneficial influx of money for Canada and for Vancouver. The small business sector in British Columbia has the most optimistic outlook of all provinces in the country, most likely due to the games. The dramatic 253% increase in home sales in the Greater Vancouver area could also be partly fueled by the Olympics.

01 This Month In Real Estate Canada 2010

View more presentations from Keller Williams Realty.

The country appears to have traveled quite a distance over the past year – from the verge of the next depression last year to what appears to be an economy that’s found its way to firmer footing. One example is that most consumers planned on spending more this year on gifts for the holidays this year than last year.

With some concerns that the housing market has rebounded too much, too fast; it is important to keep in mind is that year-over-year increases are compared to an unusually weak year.

Sales activity remained upbeat in November. National resale housing activity had a record-breaking month with 46,450 units trading hands. This stands in sharp contrast to weak activity seen one year ago and is 76 percent above the decade low reached in January. Low interest rates, coupled with upbeat consumer confidence, continue to bolster national sales activity.

The national average home price reached new heights in November, rising 19 percent to $337,231 from the same month last year. This year-over-year increase continues to underscore the sharp rebound in Canada’s priciest markets.

Strong rebounds in home sales activity and average price gains are beginning to draw more sellers back to the market. New listings fell 8 percent from November 2008 but rose 5 percent on a month-over-month basis to 69,110 units. Even with the uptick in new listings, the strong increase in housing demand continues to draw down inventories. Nationally, there were four months of inventory in November, the lowest level in more than two years. The sales-to-listings ratio was 67 percent, signaling a strong seller’s market.

In November, the 5-year conventional mortgage rate edged down to 5.49 percent, 1.26 percent lower than this time last year. As the Bank of Canada reiterates its commitment to hold its benchmark overnight lending rate steady at 0.25 percent until the end of the second quarter of 2010 and with the overall risk to the inflation outlook tilted slightly to the downside, it suggests that the Bank could leave rates unchanged even longer than expected.

In its most recent meeting, the Bank of Canada said that the recovery is becoming more firmly rooted and that it expects its growth forecasts to happen as pictured. The Bank of Canada once again held firm to its commitment to keep rates at their current 0.25 percent until mid-2010. While a strong loonie still represents some risk, it has remained slightly below the Bank’s assumption.

The Bank also heeded caution about the level of debt that consumers are taking on, reminding them to keep the long term in mind since rates will not stay low forever. Those who are taking out adjustable rate mortgages must particularly keep this in mind. As rates increase, their payment will as well. The bank and the finance minister reminded buyers to ensure they are in a financial position to handle increases.

The Canadian economy heavily depends upon trade, particularly on exporting. Due to its close proximity, most of the exports find their way south of the border into the United States. With a hard-hit U.S. economy over the past year, demand from the United States for Canadian products dropped off. Given a better economic climate in the U.S. recently, last month’s demand was up and pushed Canada back up into positive trade surplus territory for the first time in four months.

Much of the economic activity over the past few months has come from domestic demand – Canadians are taking advantage of low interest rates and the banks that will make loans and buying Canadian products with it. So far, this has helped fuel the recovery. While it is too early to know if the increase in exports will become a trend, it is a positive sign. A sustained increase in exports would help take some of the pressure off domestic demand and add additional fuel to the fire in arriving at a truly sustainable recovery.

Indicating that employment will likely be on the rebound over the coming months, the help-wanted index for November was up for the fourth consecutive month.

Most provinces, excluding only Newfoundland and Labrador, saw a rise in job postings. The Conference Board of Canada, the author of the index, stated that this suggests that labour markets across the country have possibly hit bottom.

November’s employment numbers overwhelmingly beat forecasts of 15,000, coming in at 79,000 new jobs. Most of those jobs were concentrated in the services sector. The rise in the help-wanted index could point to a continued trend of increasing employment throughout the country.

According to a survey by Towers Perrin, half of the firms they interviewed froze salaries in 2009, but only 11 percent are expecting to in 2010. This is great news for your average consumer – they can now put the extra from the salary bump toward savings or spending on the many great opportunities with low interest rates, including a new home.

Senior executives, however, may need to wait a little longer as one in five are expected to continue to have their salaries frozen. It’s unclear yet if salaries for the highest earners are readjusting to a new norm or if this will be temporary.

Most salaries are expected to regain much of the ground they lost in 2009. Median salary increases are expected to be 2.5 percent.

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