Move over Toronto and Vancouver – Waterloo Region is the one to watch

Move over Toronto and Vancouver – Waterloo Region is the one to watch

For years, Toronto and Vancouver have been the darling cities for investors.  However, with housing prices skyrocketing in those two cities, the government was recently forced to step in to cool the overheated real estate market.

As a result, investors have been looking further afield for new places to invest their money. And they’ve found it… right here in our own backyard. Construction is booming in Waterloo Region.  Investors are lining up for days to purchase new homes and condos. Resale properties have seen a spike in prices as weary Toronto buyers choose to head one hour west down Highway 401.  Their search is for more affordable housing.

The average price of all residential properties sold in October was $408,067, a 12.7 percent increase over 2015, and still far more affordable than Toronto’s average price of $762,975 for the same period. Detached homes in Waterloo Region sold for an average price of $478,685 in October – a bargain considering that detached houses in Toronto proper sold for an average price of $1.29 million.

There’s money to be made in this high-tech area which is being touted as the new Silicon Valley North and investors from China and other foreign countries are heeding the call. Well-established companies like Blackberry Ltd., Google and Open Text Corp. have a strong presence in the area.  Many other high tech start-ups have also been attracted to the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

Three local, internationally-recognized post- secondary institutions provide a pool of talent as well as fuelling a strong rental market.

A newly-released report on Canada’s 10 leading tech markets confirms that Waterloo Region is the fastest-growing, with the largest increase in new technology jobs over the past five years.  The 2016 Scoring Tech Talent Report by commercial real estate and investment firm CBRE Canada showed that Waterloo Region recorded an increase of 74.4 per cent in new tech jobs.

So, if you’re thinking of investing in this area, make sure you do it before the secret gets out.

Key Advantages of Investing in Waterloo Region

• With access to over five million people within a 100 km radius, and 150 million people within one day’s drive, the Waterloo Region is close to many U.S. markets (such as Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago) and is supported by state-of-the-art transportation and logistics
• Home to over 1,000 technology companies based in Waterloo Region, the ICT sector propels other industry sectors to cutting edge standards
• Waterloo Region’s business environment offers a survival rate of first-year ICT start-ups at almost double the global industry average, supported by the lowest R&D tax and corporate investment tax rates among the G-7
• Patents granted per capita in the Waterloo Region is almost four times higher than the Canadian average
• Annual exports from the Region total over $11 billion with a Regional GDP of 27.5 billion in 2012
• Over 150 research institutes call Waterloo Region home, including:

Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology

Institute of Food Processing Technology

Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research

Institute for Bioengineering & Biotechnology

Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy

Institute for Quantum Computing

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics