by Warren McNeil, Hello everybody! I did a video for the Pamper Yourself for a Year draw that we are running with our sevice club the Kin Club of Woolwich.

The early bird draw is happening on Dec 22, 2012 at the Central in Elmira. The prize for the early bird draw is 52 $25 gift certificates for anywhere of your choosing. The main draw is taking place on March 10, 2012 and the grand prize for that draw will be 52 $50 gift certificates for anywhere of your choosing. There will also be many other smaller gift certificate prizes to be won. Net proceeds for the draw will go to the Womwns Crisis Services of Waterloo Region, various sports teams, educational and community projects in the Waterloo Region. There will be 5000 tickets sold. Tickets are only $20. The very best part about this draw is that I will drop off the tickets to you. I know the holidays are upon us so I want to make this as simple as possible for anyone who might like to buy a ticket. Thank you very much for supporting these great causes!!! Have a terrific day!

http://www.waterlooluxurycondos.com - Here is a useful video for anyone who would like to know how the luxury condo market is doing in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

The time frame I am using in the video is Nov 2009-Nov 2010 vs Nov 2010-Nov 2011.

This information can be helpful for anyone thinking of selling their condo or buyer who are looking to understand how well the Kitchener Waterloo condo market is performing.

  

  Luxury condos sold within the past year vs the same period in the previous year over $300,000

91 Total Units sold between Nov 2009 - Nov 2010

17 Sold in Waterloo East

51 Sold in Waterloo West - 11 were Bauer Lofts, 16 at 255 Keats Way

11 Sold in Kitchener East

12 Sold in Kitchener West

The sale price for condos ranged in between $295,000 up to $695,000 Median Sale price was 347,500 Average days on market were 54 days

114 Total Units sold between Nov 2010 - Nov 2011

31 Sold in Waterloo East

60 Sold in Waterloo West - 20 of which were Bauer Lofts!!! 10 were at 255 Keats Way. 50% sold from just two complexes

13 sold in Kitchener East

10 Sold in Kitchener West

Condos ranged in sale price between $295,000 up to $950,000 Median Sale price was 348,750 Average days on market were 53 days So in summary there was a 20% increase of unit sales for condos over $300,000 year over year for 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. There was also an increase in the maximum sale price year over year. The median sale price saw a slight increase.

The above information is believed to be correct errors and ommissions accepted

Even though it's been awhile since we blogged on Activerain we are still here. I'd rather not blog at all if I don't have nothing worthwhile to say. We still maintain our own hosted blog but we haven't posted on there much either.

We have been pre-occupied with work. That's a good thing. Lots of other things have been going around us as well. Royal Wedding, Canadian Federal Election etc. The weather has been a little touch and go lately as well. April was wet and rainy. May seems to be much better! We're expecting rain over the weekend.

Home sales were down a bit in K-W area for the month of April. I think the spring market was just delayed a bit. I am optomistic May will be a better month.

Tomorrow we are having Realtor Xpo in Kitchener. We are looking forward to that. We went last year and I have a feeling it will be better this year.

Tom Ferry is coming to Toronto at the end of the month. Might check him out! I love watching him speak. He has so much energy and he has lots of great ideas about social networking for business.

Well that's it for now. Hope everybody is doings lots of business during the first quarter of 2011.

 

Warren

 

 

by Warren McNeil

The Elmira Maple Syrup Festival is just around the corner.  In just 2 short weeks Elmira will host 1000s of people at the single largest one day festival of its kind. There is so much to see and do. Sugar bush tours, pancakes, taffy pulling, antique and toy shows and a huge pedestrian mall on Arthur St. Food galore. Come hungry leave stuffed!!

The festival will be taking place on April 2, 2011. I highly recommend checking it out.

Check out this video I did about the event!!!

 

by Warren McNeil

I did a video about why buyers should consider working with there own real estate agent when buying a brand new house rather then buying from the builder directly. There are many good reasons why this is a wise choice. Buyers will be able to leverage an agents experience so that they can compare all the different builders as well as selecting the best lot, floorplan and upgrades for future resale. Often times when a buyer walks into a new construction model home, they are dealing with the builders real estate agent. So it just makes sense for buyers to go in with their own representation.

 

I did a video about the real estate market in Kitchener Waterloo really picking up because spring is almost here. Mickey and Lola made a special guest appearance.

 

by Warren McNeil

http://www.kitchenerlofts.com - I did a video about the new Andrin Homes condo development in downtown Kitchener.

These new condos are really going to transform the downtown core and will be the go to destination for the years to come. Located on prime real estate these two towers will have around 400 condominium units. One tower will be facing Duke and Young St and the other one will face King Street. The tentative completion date for the first tower is December 2013.

In the video I make reference that the City Centre condominiums will be Leed certified. Here is a link to learn more about what Leed certification means:

Wikipedia - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

If you would like to learn more about this development or any other new developments in Kitchener or Waterloo, please contact me at my website.

http://www.kitchenerlofts.com or http://www.waterloolofts.com



by Warren McNeil,

Did another video. This time about things buyers need to know when buying a condo. I talk about condominium corporations, condo fees, rules and regulations, pet restrictions, rental restrictions and senior oriented condos.

 

http://www.waterloolofts.com

http://www.kitchenerlofts.com

By Warren McNeil

Here is a video I did about a client who didn't initially want to buy a condo because they didn't want to pay condo fees. After they realized that the condo was the better buy they opted to purchase the condo. In this experience there were no single family homes in their price range that even came close to what they could buy in a townhouse. The condition of the townhouse was considerably better. The biggest challenge that I face sometimes is explaining that a condo might be the better option.

As of this blog posting, there are between 10-20 condos in Kitchener Waterloo with condo fees under 200.

Mel and I belong to a service club in Woolwich township in Waterloo region. The club is the Kin Club of Woolwich. Checkout http://www.woolwichkin.com

Our club is hosting a draw with all of the proceeds going to the Womens Crisis Services (Anselma House) .

Tickets are $20 and the draw is going to take place on March 5th. If anybody would like tickets, let me know. There are 3 grand prizes of 52x $50 gift certificates to the place of your choosing. You can redeem the grand prize anywhere in Canada so even if you are not in the Waterloo region you can still win. Examples of gift cards could be gas, restaurants, LCBO or whatever you can think of.

Checkout this Youtube video I did about the draw: