Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge Home Prices Continue to See Healthy Gains

Increase in sales expected as spring activity increases

KITCHENER, ON, WATERLOO, ON and CAMBRIDGE, ON, April 4, 2019 /CNW/ - The Royal LePage House Price Survey¹ released today reflected continued growth in Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge home prices for the first quarter of 2019. The aggregate price of a home in the region was $517,370, a year-over-year increase of 8.9 per cent.

The median price of a two-storey home rose 9.6 per cent year-over-year to $551,042 and the median price of a bungalow increased 6.0 per cent to $461,336.

"Activity has been mostly flat, but we cannot discount how the weather impacts the market," says Keith Church, broker and owner, Royal LePage Grand Valley Realty. "January was relatively active but sales dropped off in February. However, we are expecting a busy spring this year."

Church added that the new homebuyer incentives introduced by the federal government last month are unlikely to affect the region's real estate market.

"While all measures that help qualified buyers to become homeowners are welcomed, it won't be a game-changer for the region," stated Church. "First-time homebuyers are already doing quite well here as the down payment on an average house is $25,000."

Looking to the spring market, Church expects unit sales to pick up coinciding with a modest lift in prices.

Nationally, year-over-year home prices showed moderate gains in many regions across Canada in the first quarter of 2019. The Royal LePage National House Price Composite, compiled from proprietary property data in 63 of the nation's largest real estate markets, showed that the price of a home in Canada increased just 2.7 per cent year-over-year to $621,575 in the first quarter of 2019, well below the long-term norm of approximately 5 per cent. When broken out by housing type, the median price of a two-storey home rose 2.6 per cent year-over-year to $729,553, while the median price of a bungalow rose 1.1 per cent year-over-year to $513,497. Condominiums remained the fastest growing housing type on a national basis, rising 5.4 per cent year-over-year to $447,260.

"We are expecting this to be a sluggish year overall in Canada's residential real estate market, with the hangover from the 2018 market correction and weaker economic growth acting as a drag on home price appreciation, balanced by lower for longer interest rates," said Phil Soper, president and CEO, Royal LePage. "There is a silver lining here. This slowdown gives buyers, and first-time buyers in particular, an opportunity to buy real estate in our country's largest cities."

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¹ Aggregate prices are calculated using a weighted average of the median values of all housing types collected. Data is provided by RPS Real Property Solutions.

SOURCE Royal LePage Real Estate Services

Angela Pinzon, Kaiser Lachance Communications, 647.295.0517, [email protected]