Real estate information statistics and projections are ubiquitous. It is not uncommon to read from the same source and on the same day that market activity and prices are up, down or unchanged. You can read that prices are on their way up with no end in sight or that leading economists are predicting a drop in house prices by as little as 10% or as much as 25%. Does this coverage keep you informed and in tune with the value of your home? No, it does not. For the information to be useful it needs to relate to your neighbourhood and to your home.

Kitchener-Waterloo is divided by number and by name into 4 areas and 33 sub-areas or neighbourhoods. For this blog post we will be looking at the market activity for sales, expired and cancelled listings in Area 01 Sub-Area 0114, the Uptown and North Ward areas of the City of Waterloo.

In the 3 month period beginning on December 21st 2013 and ending on February 28th 2014 there were a total of 25 sold, cancelled or expired listings in Uptown Waterloo and the North Ward. Of these listings only 6 (24%) were successful sales, 12 (48%) expired and 7 (28%) were cancelled. This leads me to believe that only 24% of those intending to sell their home priced their home appropriately, prepared their home adequately and marketed their home effectively. To put it more negatively 76% of those hoping to sell their home did not price their home appropriately, failed to prepare their home adequately and/or did not market their home effectively. Now that we know what homes sold and did not sell for lets have a look at what prices homes sold or perhaps more importantly did not sell for.

First we will have a look at the homes that sold. The sale prices ranged from a low of $205,000 to a high of $422,500 resulting in an average sale price of $268,083. This is a misleading statistic, of the 6 properties sold, 4 sold in the range of $205,000 to $240,000, 1 sold for $285,000 and 1 sold for $422,500. From these numbers we can see that there are three distinct value ranges for the last 3 months activity with the majority of homes (66%) sold in the lowest price range and the average of that grouping is a sale price of $225,250. What do these numbers tell us? Mainly that averages are a very poor indicator of the value of your particular home and should not be relied upon too heavily.

Lastly, lets have a look at the majority of homes, those that did not sell. There were 19 expired/cancelled listings ranging in price from a low of $205,900 to a high of $679,900. This is too broad a range for an average value to be of any use in determining value but we can make some interesting observations. The majority of our sold properties were in the range of $205,000 to $240,000 while the largest grouping of 6 properties in our unsold listings were in the price range of $244,000 to $286,900 indicating that most buyers shopping in this area are looking for homes valued at $240,000 or less. In the range of $300,000 to $400,000 we had 5 unsold properties and no sold properties indicating that buyers in that price range preferred other neighbourhoods to this one. At the top of our price range, home listed for over $400,000 we had 1 sold property and 6 unsold listings indicating again that buyers see a better value for their money in other areas.

What does all this tell us? It lets us know that the real estate market and your individual properties value is difficult to judge based upon averages. Each neighbourhood has clusters of value and you need to know which cluster your home belongs in and your home must be valued on it’s own merits. If you want to learn what your home in valued in todays market please get in touch for a free home evaluation.

Please get in touch with any comments or questions by email at alasdair@alasdair.ca or call my direct line at 519-590-6118.

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