Waterloo Region’s housing market is no longer seeing rapid price increases the way it did earlier this year – but it isn’t showing any signs of retreating to lower prices, either.
Real estate firm Royal LePage released its latest look at the local market Thursday.
It shows that the aggregate sale price of a home in the region – a weighted average that takes into account different types of housing being sold – hit $483,133 in the third quarter of 2017. That number is 28 per cent higher than the figure from the third quarter of 2016.
Keith Church, the broker of record for Royal LePage’s local brokerage, says the numbers point to a continuing seller’s market in the region.
“We are seeing more and more people move to the Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge region who have workplace flexibility and only commute to Toronto a few days a week,” Church said in a press release.
“Time is money and the significant difference in home prices is worth the commute for many people.”
The data also shows that the region may have been moving toward a more balanced market by the end of the quarter, Church said.
Two-storey houses and bungalows saw prices increase by slightly more than 28 per cent, while condo prices rose by 15.4 per cent.
On the national level, Royal LePage found, the aggregate house price rose by 13.3 per cent year-over-year to $628,411.
For the first time since 2011, the country’s five biggest housing markets – Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa – all showed quarter-over-over growth. Royal LePage says this suggests stable economic growth across the country.
