Kitchener house with wood studs and nothing else sells for $761,000

KITCHENER — If you are paying three-quarters of a million dollars, you would think you could buy a house you could live in.

But not always.

A single-family house in the Forest Heights area of ​​Kitchener sold last month for $761,000 but there is nothing in it.

There is no drywall and no insulation. It’s down to the wood studs.

“You are buying a shell of a house and land,” said ReMax realtor John Teixeira.

The back split at 28 Timberlane Cres., off Rolling Hill Meadows sold for $111,000 over the asking price of $650,000.

The Realtor with Accsell Realty who sold the unfinished house did not return phone calls or emails.

It is not clear why the house was unfinished and down to the wood studs.

The house was built in 1980 and is about 1,041 square feet. The listing says the small house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and no garage.

It was listed last December and sold about two months later.

Whoever purchases the home will spend at least $100,000 to add walls, a kitchen and a bathroom, to make it livable, Teixeira said.

And when buying a house that cannot be lived in, it is tough to get financing, he said.

“You have to have a significant down payment, up to 40 per cent and up,” said Teixeira. Banks are not interested in financing a property that can not be lived in.

In this case, a down payment could be as much as $300,000.

Despite a red-market housing market, Teixeira said there are signs that prices may be decreasing slowly.

A month ago, a semi in Cambridge was selling for almost $900,000. Now the same house is at about $800,000.

Last month, the average price for all residential properties in Kitchener and Waterloo topped at $1 million.

February sales from the Kitchener-Waterloo Association of Realtors show the average price for all properties was $1,007,109, an increase of 5.6 per cent over January and 33.6 per cent higher than in February 2021.

Teixeira said there is also less buyers bidding on homes and that could be because the housing stock has increased.

In Cambridge, in January there were 30 listings. As of last week, there were 142 listings.

“That is a huge increase,” he said.