3-333 Northlake Drive, Waterloo Ontario

Looking for a great condo in Waterloo, but don’t want to pay the prices that new buildings like Bauer and 144 Park are going at?  Take a look at this great two bedroom condo close to RIM, the Universities, the expressway, and picturesque trails & the St Jacobs Farmers Market.

Priced at under $150,000, this property offers exceptional value.

Tenants desire the location, which will only improve if plans for the LRT go ahead.  Also, there is almost a million square feet of new office space planned for across Weber Street, as we discussed here in Look Smart By Investing Where The Jobs Are.  Buying near new development has historically always been a good thing for real estate investors!

Take a look at the details below, and then email or call me ( 519 772 4376) to schedule a private viewing
Well maintained two bedroom condominium in a terrific Waterloo location near high tech companies like RIM, Descartes, AGFA, Google, Open Text, as well as the two Universities and Conestoga College.

There is a Light Rapid Transit (LRT) station planned  at Northfield & Parkside, a short walk away.

The proposed LRT plan would allow access to Uptown Waterloo, Fairview Park Mall, and eventually Sportsworld Crossing and into Cambridge, Ontario.

Offered for sale at $ 144,000

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CTV News covers the opening of Andrin Homes’ City Centre condo project in downtown Kitchener

There has been a lot of excitement and anticipation for this project, over a decade in the making – Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr started assembling the land about 15 years ago – and tomorrow people will finally get a chance to get inside a model unit to see  & feel what City Centre is all about.

City Centre Model Suite

Last night, CTV news took a peak inside the model suite, and I spoke to them about the size and pricing of the units. Click here to watch the video on CTV’s site (wait a couple seconds for it to load up).

Can’t wait til tomorrow?  Here is a sneak peak inside the City Centre model suite.  If you are interested in more information about these condos, email or call me at 519 772 4376

City Centre Condos in Kitchener - 1 BR plus den living space

The living room at the City Centre model suite

City Centre Condos in Kitchener Model Suite

Living area

City Centre Condos in Kitchener - Bedroom

City Centre Condos in Kitchener - Dining Area

If you are interested in more information about these condos, email or call me at 519 772 4376

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This is a question I get a lot from real estate investors.

The answer is Yes – there are recently built & pre construction condos in Kitchener Waterloo under $200,000.

Which ones?  Watch this video to find out

Among others, City Centre by Andrin has units starting under $200,000 – and so does their last project, the Kaufman Lofts, a conversion of the historic Kaufman factory up the street.

These are both in booming downtown Kitchener; the Kaufman Lofts are across the street from land the Region recently purchased to use as a transit hub (see: Waterloo Region Buys Kitchener Land to Redevelop for Transit Hub), and it’s kitty corner to the University Health Sciences Campus.

For a complete list of condos under $200,000 in Kitchener Waterloo (and Cambridge or Guelph too!) email me, click the link on the sidebar up top or call 519 772 4377

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photo by spaceamoeba

Kitchener Waterloo Condos Face Off:

City Centre and 144 Park in Kitchener Waterloo

I was recently talking to a few people in one of the Wonderful Waterloo forums about the new City Centre Condos coming to downtown Kitchener – about 380 units in two towers (one with 17 floors, and a second 14 floor tower).

The topic of Investing in Kitchener Waterloo Condos came up, and one of the members mentioned that they had chosen to put their hard earned investment capital to work at 144 Park, a pre-construction condo being built in Waterloo across the street from the Bauer Lofts.

144 Park, Waterloo Ontario

Curious, I asked why they prefered 144 Park over the City Centre Condos.

The real estate investor replied:

“There are many things at this point that makes me feel it [144 Park] is a good deal and not limited to:

• price per sqft. I paid $340, whereas depending on the unit at CC, they are up to $370 including parking and locker*
• assured it will be built by 90%+ units being sold
• timing. Who knows when CC will have occupancy
• across the street from Vincenzo’s and Bauer Kitchen
• the area around King & Allen is ripe for more big development
• in building amenities
• availability of bigger units
• proximity to Sunlife for rentability

If you want a bigger town feel, City Center will be surrounded by more, but downtown is still a few years away from that. I mean more within a few steps, not a few blocks.”

With Bauer Lofts next door to 144 Park, it’s already desirable. I really like that Vincenzo’s and Bauer Kitchen are across the street. I think that will appeal to a lot of people who desire condo living.”

I found this perspective very interesting.  I have a number of friends who have bought Kitchener Waterloo Condos, including suites at City Centre in Kitchener, and a few clients who have been interested in 144 Park in Waterloo;  none of them have yet bought at 144 Park.

I think they’re both great projects, in premium locations.  Clearly 144 Park is more upscale, but that doesn’t mean it will be a better (or worse) investment.

What do you think?

(PS the quote above is from someone on an internet forum. It’s not advice or fact from me, and it shouldn’t be taken as investment advice.  Talk to me or another professional for individual advice for your specific situation before making a large financial decision)

Buying Kitchener Waterloo Condos

We have a selection of Kitchener Waterloo Condos available under $200,000, as well as other pre-construction developments.  Whatever type of real estate investment you’re looking for, we can help you with it.

For pricing, availability and info on any Kitchener Waterloo Condos, call me at 519-772-4376 or email me directly at Benjamin AT BenjaminBach DOT com.

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I had heard about it from a few leading edge tech types – the next cool thing – and I figured I should get on and see what the fuss was about.

Like many, I wasn’t quite sure – even after I signed up and took a look around. (Let me guess, you know how I felt!)

As time went on, I started to get it.

Conversations were happening, all around me.  I could listen to all of them, meet the people behind them, and even jump in to offer my point of view.

Eventually, I understood the power of twitter – meeting people, listening to them, and engaging where where I could add value.

We can see (and search through) what people everywhere are talking about.  Talk about market research!

I can hear what the Kitchener Waterloo community is talking about.

I  learn what the leading marketing minds are reading and thinking.

I listen to people’s needs in real time; what’s important right now.

I  interact with my clients and get feedback from prospects.

I  meet and learn from colleagues within the Commercial Real Estate and ‘Real Estate social media’ scenes.

I listen to what brilliant minds are talking about on twitter, and I absorb.

Pretty cool, eh?

Who I met on twitter

I’ve met and interacted with some amazing people on twitter.  Thanks to all of you!

First, the #KWawesome gang.  Kitchener-Waterloo sure is a cool place -and we have our own awesome hash tag to prove it

Special thanks to Mayor Brenda Halloran (remember to vote in the upcoming election!), Mandy Dennison, Darryl Kraemer, Thrive Juice Bar, Herle’s and Martin’s farms, Kurt Wissent, Amy & Karl from CuteGecko, Julie Wheeler, Vince Jelenic, James Howe, Mike and Vesna Leonard,  Mike Shanks, Ramy Nassar, local restaurants like The41, Bauer Kitchen (always accomodating my vegan requests – extra thx!!) and Nate and Nats just to name a few.

This list isn’t exhaustive – there are hundreds of cool KW people on twitter – just a sample of the awesomeness behind #KWawesome!

The real estate twitterverse is full of awesome people too.  In the morning i can pop in and say hi to the #CRUSH and #crejavaclub crews.  If I can’t sleep, Tom Royce, Darin Persinger & Ricardo Bueno are always on west coast time talking about real estate & internet marketing.

Real Estate People like Maya Paveza, Jay Thompson, Nicole Nicolay, Dustin Luther, Loren Sanders, Jeff Brown,  Darin Persinger, Lani & Benn Rosales Todd Waller, Marc Pina, Mike Mueller,  Nikki Beauchamp,  Melissa DelGaudio, Jeff Gingerich, Addy Saeed,Teresa Boardman, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Marianna Wagner are great resources to talk with and learn from. Again, this is far from an exhaustive list!

There is a great Keller Williams community online too, including the whole team behind @kwri, Amber, Jay Papasan, the whole KW Commercial crew, Lisa Archer, Sherry Puffer, David Paterson, and more.

The Global Commercial Real Estate world is also connecting over twitter, with brokers from all over coming together to network, exchange ideas, deals and contacts – all to the benefit of our clients. People like Barbi Reuter, Duke Long, Coy Davidson, Charlie Foxworth, ColliersAZNews, Michael_MBA, and others make twitter a valuable place for anyone looking to learn about Commercial Real Estate – novice or expert, vendor or broker.

There are some awesome Toronto social media people doing their thing on twitter, like Scott Stratten – unMarketing, and TheBizMedia crew headed by Guy Gal (who like Vayner Media, ran a live-to-twitter basketball league this past summer).

Thanks to Celebrity authors and speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Stefan Swanepol, Robert Cheeke, Coach Tom Ferry, Richard Robbins, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver and Tom Peters, who take the time to listen and talk with the people who buy their products.

Tom is cool enough to take time to exchange tweets with me on lazy weekends about global politics, (lack of) integrity in journalism, among other topics.

I think everyone knows how @GaryVee will drop anything and do a call or ustream for a fan, so I don’t need to recount that here. Needless to say, Gary has been very generous with his time and knowledge.

Rich Robbins tweets out the best ideas from his morning reflections, and these thoughts help me get the day started right.

It’s cool that I was able to easily gain access to people like this through twitter.

So… Was it all worth it?

My first 9,999 tweets led to me meeting awesome new people, being interviewed on internet radio programs, receiving invitations to speak at Inman’s Agent Reboot in Seattle, writing for the leading real estate online magazine Agent Genius, speaking to an audience at REBarCamp Toronto that included internet marketing legend Dean Jackson, meeting and speaking with the Mayor of Waterloo, having juice with Duke Long in Toronto, receiving business referrals, meeting new clients, sharing my blogs with more people, having dinner with new friends, taking online relationships offline and face-to-face (how cool is that?!?!) and being able to engage with my communities on a deeper level.

What an awesome ride so far.

I’m exciting to see where the next 10,000 tweets lead me.

–
Are you on twitter? What has it led you to?

Let me know in the comments, and add me at @BenjaminBach

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I asked Jeff what he thought of the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hike:

To most it doesn’t have much of an impact – 0.25% on a 200,000.00 mortgage that would be $10.00 a week or so. Mentally though when there are increases it scares people.

We need to keep in mind that rates are still very low and increases are expected going forward.

My advice to clients is if you can’t afford your current mortgage if rates were 6-6.5% your probably should look in a lower range as rates could easily be in that range someday (likely not for some time but it is possible)

Are you concerned with the direction rates are going in? Personally, I do not think it is smart economic policy to artificially keep money cheap – but I do enjoy borrowing at low rates to invest in more property!

What about you?

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Mortgage interest rates area heading up!

This morning, the Bank of Canada announced what many of us were expecting; they have raised the prime interest rate by a quarter percent, to 0.75%. This will likely put pressure on variable rate mortgages.

Mortgage ares are still very affordable. We have real estate investors buying properties, and getting loans with very low interest rates.

My friend Bev Gay, from STS Mortgage Pros in Kitchener, says that ‘banks will raise their prime lending rate today from 2.5% to 2.75%.’

(see also: More analysis on the Bank of Canada interest rate hike)

Here is the full press release from the Bank of Canada:

“Bank of Canada increases overnight rate target to 3/4 per cent

OTTAWA – The Bank of Canada today announced that it is raising its target for the overnight rate by one-quarter of one percentage point to 3/4 per cent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1 per cent and the deposit rate is 1/2 per cent.

The global economic recovery is proceeding but is not yet self-sustaining. Greater emphasis on balance sheet repair by households, banks, and governments in a number of advanced economies is expected to temper the pace of global growth relative to the Bank’s outlook in its April Monetary Policy Report (MPR). While the policy response to the European sovereign debt crisis has reduced the risk of an adverse outcome and increased the prospect of sustainable long term growth, it is expected to slow the global recovery over the projection horizon. In the United States, private demand is picking up but remains uneven.

Economic activity in Canada is unfolding largely as expected, led by government and consumer spending. Housing activity is declining markedly from high levels, consistent with the Bank’s view that policy stimulus resulted in household expenditures being brought forward into late 2009 and early 2010. While employment growth has resumed, business investment appears to be held back by global uncertainties and has yet to recover from its sharp contraction during the recession.

The Bank expects the economic recovery in Canada to be more gradual than it had projected in its April MPR, with growth of 3.5 per cent in 2010, 2.9 per cent in 2011, and 2.2 per cent in 2012. This revision reflects a slightly weaker profile for global economic growth and more modest consumption growth in Canada. The Bank anticipates that business investment and net exports will make a relatively larger contribution to growth.

Inflation in Canada has been broadly in line with the Bank’s April projection. While the Bank now expects the economy to return to full capacity at the end of 2011, two quarters later than had been anticipated in April, the underlying dynamics for inflation are little changed. Both total CPI and core inflation are expected to remain near 2 per cent throughout the projection period. The Bank will look through the transitory effects on inflation of changes to provincial indirect taxes.

Reflecting all of these factors, the Bank has decided to raise the target for the overnight rate to 3/4 per cent. This decision leaves considerable monetary stimulus in place, consistent with achieving the 2 per cent inflation target in light of the significant excess supply in Canada, the strength of domestic spending, and the uneven global recovery.

Given the considerable uncertainty surrounding the outlook, any further reduction of monetary stimulus would have to be weighed carefully against domestic and global economic developments.

Information note:
A full update of the Bank’s outlook for the economy and inflation, including risks to the projection, will be published in the MPR on 22 July 2010. The next scheduled date for announcing the overnight rate target is 8 September 2010″

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Apartment construction boosts housing starts
WATERLOO REGION — Fuelled by a surge in apartment building construction, housing starts in Waterloo Region rose 165 per cent in June compared to the same month last year.

Ground was broken on 388 units, up from 146 a year ago, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Friday.

June was a good month, but the first half of this year was also a busy one for builders in the region. Foundations have been poured for 1,566 units, the highest total in the past five years and 88 per cent more than the 831 units started for the first half of 2009, the agency said.

Of the units started last month, 175 were concentrated in two multi-unit projects, a 61-unit condo complex in Cambridge and a 114-unit apartment complex in Kitchener.

Construction of single-detached dwellings rose to 135 from 77 a year ago, townhouse starts increased to 64 from 25 while semis held steady at 14.

Kitchener and Cambridge were the busiest with 228 and 125 starts respectively. Waterloo was quiet with only 10 starts.

For the year to date, 692 detached homes have been launched in the region, up from 447 in 2009. Foundations have been poured for 572 apartment units compared to 831 last year.

“The strong level of apartment construction, as well as the increased demand for new homes in the latter part of 2009 and early 2010 were responsible for the strength of new residential construction this year,” Erica McLerie, an analyst with the housing corporation, said in a news release.

Nationally, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 189,300 in June, down 3.1 per cent from May.

The decline was largely due to fewer multiple-unit starts — condos and semi-detached homes — in Ontario, though most of the country has seen a softening in demand for residential construction permits in recent months.

The June figures support economists’ view that housing activity has peaked for the time being, says BMO Capital Markets economist Robert Kavcic.

“Despite recent softness, overall starts still remain above the estimated 175,000 rate of household formation, helping to build the case for further weakness in the coming months,” Kavcic wrote in a note.

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This is the first time the value of transactions has exceeded a billion dollars in the first six months of the year.

The number of units sold is just off of 2007 record pace;  it’s been a busy year.

Click play for details on the KW real estate market.

From the KW Real Estate Board:

KITCHENER-WATERLOO, ON (July 6, 2010) – During the first half of the year, the number of residential properties sold through the Multiple Listing System (MLS®) of the Kitchener-Waterloo Real Estate Board (KWREB) increased 16 percent.
…

The average sales price of all homes sold between January and June 2010 jumped 10.7 percent to $291,702, and the average price of detached homes was $331,359, an increase of 11.7 percent on a year-to date basis.
Residential property sales in June were down 12.1 percent compared to the same month last year, but were practically on par with May sales. Last month, there were a total of 634 homes sales in Kitchener-Waterloo and area, compared with 721 in June 2009.

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