Below you will find a Kitchener/Waterloo Market Update For March which will provide you with information on the local real estate market and recent sales activity in your specific area. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or if you are ready to move forward with the next step!

Kitchener/Waterloo Market Update For March

The temperature in the Kitchener/Waterloo market is cooling.

We continue to see the market cooling in the first three weeks of April. March was the first month in the last year where we saw prices drop. The average sale price dropped from February by 6%. In the first three weeks of April, the detached houses fell by 8.2%. Homes are still selling on the average above list price, but they are selling for 20.1% above list in April compared to 25.6 % last month. We are still in a strong seller market, but it is cooling. It would appear that we will see fewer homes sell in April than in March.

The market is one of the friendlier markets for buyers in the last year. Most sellers are still using the hold-off strategy, but many homes are not getting offers on their presentation day. Detached house prices are still up 16.2% from last year. It is still a good time to sell, but sellers can’t expect to get February’s prices. The better strategy in our current market may be to sell first and buy after.

Interest rates so far this year have gone up .75 basis points. So even though prices have gone down, your mortgage payment won’t. We could see a prime interest rate at 2.25 to 2.75 by this year. Even these higher rates are still historically low.

The government’s budget had several changes; 10.1 billion dollars for new housing and 4 billion to the municipalities to speed up the approval process. There is also a new Tax-Free First Saving, allowing $8,000 per of tax-free money up to $40,000. They are attempting to slow investors with a two-year ban on foreign buyers and an anti-flipping policy. They propose getting rid of blind bidding, but the market seems to be taking care of that already.

So the big question is will this make the market go cold, or prices come down significantly. No, not considerably at least, demand is still way outpacing the supply; they can’t build houses fast enough. Supply issues aren’t disappearing any time soon. Trudeau has also committed to increasing immigration to the highest in history, which will further strain the supply of housing. We will probably see the market continue to cool over the next few months as we approach summer. It will be a better market to make a move.
I am Brad Wylde with GoWylde Real Estate, a group of real estate professionals passionate about helping people grow their wealth through real estate.

Check out Greig Turvey’s article in Kitchener Today!