Wahi’s 2024 Kitchener, Cambridge, and Waterloo Housing Snapshot Report

Through the first 11 months of 2024, Waterloo Region home prices registered a small decline from where they stood a year ago, while homes also took longer to sell on average. This is broadly in line with what was observed in other Ontario markets, such as the Greater Toronto Area, although Waterloo Region has shown more resilience in the face of higher interest rates. Home sales edged higher compared to the same period in 2023.

Bidding competition among homebuyers is one area where the overall region has been diverging from other markets that Wahi tracks. It’s still not uncommon for homes in Waterloo Region to sell for more than the list price — though this varies substantially depending on the neighbourhood and property type. The condo segment has been notably cooler, with sales posting a double-digit annual decline and prices regularly bid down.

At the local level, the median price was up or flat on a year-over-year basis in four out of the seven submarkets that make up the region. Sales were also up or flat relative to the year before everywhere but the Township of Wilmot, while homes took longer to sell on average in all submarkets. With homes staying on the market longer, inventory has piled higher in the region, providing buyers more choice.

Community Spotlight

Wahi drilled down into the market data at the neighbourhood and municipal level to identify hyper-local trends including the most- and least-affordable communities, most popular by search volume on Wahi, and more.

The majority of Waterloo Region’s most affordable neighbourhoods were centrally located in Kitchener, where you’re more likely to find condos, which tend to have lower price points. Beaver Creek Meadows’ rock-bottom median home price is due to the prevalence of mobile homes located in the area, specifically those found within Green Acre Park.

Despite having a lower overall median home price than the other six major submarkets in the Waterloo Region, Kitchener is home to several high-priced pockets. The most expensive pockets in the region are generally known to be upscale neighbourhoods with large single-family homes.

Homes sold within two weeks or less in just six neighbourhoods across Waterloo Region in the third quarter of 2024. The fastest-selling neighbourhoods outpaced the region-wide average (23 days) by more than a week. Affordability also appeared to play a role in how fast homes changed hands. Half of the fastest-selling neighbourhoods had sale prices below the region-wide median.

Overbidding and Underbidding Trends

Waterloo Region has been less vulnerable to the housing-market slowdown affecting cities and towns throughout the province, Wahi research suggests.

In the third quarter of the year, nearly half (48%) of Waterloo Region’s neighbourhoods were in overbidding territory.

This stands in stark contrast to other Ontario markets that Wahi tracks. For example, during the same quarter, every neighbourhood in Hamilton was underbid and 99% of Ottawa's neighbourhoods were underbid as well.

However, much of the overbidding witnessed in Waterloo Region during the previous quarter was relegated to single-family homes. Looking only at this housing type, 61% of neighbourhoods were in overbidding territory, compared to just 18% for condos.

With two 50-basis-point rate cuts from the Bank of Canada in the fourth quarter, Wahi will continue to monitor the Waterloo Region market to see whether bidding activity intensifies in response to potentially improved affordability.

Methodology: Every quarter, Wahi compares the differences between median list and sold prices to determine whether Waterloo Region neighbourhoods are in overbidding or underbidding territory, excluding those neighbourhoods with fewer than five transactions over the study period. A total of 83 neighbourhoods out of Waterloo region’s approximately 120 met this threshold in Q3 2024.

Methodology: The top overbidding and underbidding neighbourhoods are ranked by the median overbid or underbid amount. The median overbid and underbid amounts are calculated by subtracting the list price from the sold price of each listing in a given neighbourhood. These are then ranked by the median of all subtractions and presented as the median overbid or underbid amount.

Wahi also compares the differences between list and sold prices across 12 larger Ontario markets each quarter. In Q3, the cities of Waterloo and Kitchener, respectively, were the only two that weren’t in underbidding territory as of the third quarter of the year. Both markets were selling at asking, with Cambridge just behind. This comparison differs from the neighbourhood analysis as it is based on all transactions in each city as a whole.

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