As rental prices in many areas of the GTA control to spiral upwards, more people are looking for rental opportunities a little further out. One area that is becoming particularly popular with renters – and looks increasingly attractive for investors – is the city of Kitchener.
“It’s a place that is coming onto the horizon for many people who are looking away from Toronto,” says Kirin Singh, Vice President, ROi Developments. “The Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area is considered to be Canada’s tech triangle, and since Google moved in it has gone to another level. The tech industry is flying and people from all over the world are applying for jobs in the area. The tech triangle is also home to some great universities – and companies like Google are fighting to keep those students in the area when they graduate.”
Residents of the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area are also benefitting from the recently finished LRT system which connects all three cities and has drastically reduced travel times. It’s been such a success that mayor of Mississauga Bonnie Crombie wants to connect her city to the LRT system.
“It’s a great idea because more people are going to be moving further west from the GTA,” Singh says. “We’ve seen it happen in Oshawa and Whitby. If you told people to buy real estate in Oshawa six or seven years ago, people would have thought you were crazy, but now it is becoming somewhat unaffordable. The same is happening in the west and I expect the number of people moving out to continue rise.”
Everything seems to point to further growth for Kitchener and its surrounding areas. GO Trains will stop in Kitchener starting in 2019, the 401 at Highway 6 has been expanded to five lanes on both sides, and CREW readers even voted the city as the #1 location for investment opportunities in Canada.
“Kitchener is home to major employers, global think tanks, and leading banks and insurance companies,” Singh says. “With the GO Train coming to Kitchener, I expect something similar to what happened with Barrie 10 years ago. No one wanted to invest there but as soon as the GO Train went out there, people started flocking.”
