Windsor Market Update - Aditya Soma

 

Despite a slowing property market in some areas and further expected interest rate increases the demand for real estate investment properties outside of the GTA continues to be strong.

Is that the case in Windsor? Where are the opportunities for reasonable house prices and cash-flowing rental markets?

Join us for the next stop on our virtual tour of Ontario markets with expert insights and market updates for Windsor from Aditya Soma of Win City Realty.

Alfonso: The Windsor market. I think we were saving some good news with Aditya Soma. Really excited to bring it on. A little quick pile on from being an immigrant with over a hundred thousand dollars in debt to becoming financially independent by the age of 30. A software engineer turned real estate agent in Canada, making over a million dollars in commissions. That is fantastic. I think he has not just built a dream life for his family, but it's also helping create freedom.

It all started with one YouTube video and we were talking about when we first met and you were interviewing, walking around talking to everybody. I remember that. Now with over 20,000 subscribers with over a hundred million views. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. How are you doing?

Aditya: Thank you so much for a humble introduction. First of all, let me quickly touch on what's happening in Windsor and then I'll get to the numbers. Those who don't know where Windsor is located, it ends in Windsor, after London, pretty much 401, divides into 402, goes to Sarnia and then 401 ends in Windsor. Personally, I have been in Windsor for the last seven years. I have seen the growth happen and the population growth is one of the biggest things that's going on. Lot of new immigrants are moving into Windsor. 2008 the automotive industry burst the market crash Windsor, and along with the Detroit kind of sink in.

Until 2016, 2017 we didn't see anything happening. Since the bigger cities started to put in a lot of regulations and the cash flow became harder and harder, investors started to go to the smaller cities like Sarnia, Windsor, so Windsor was one of them. And now with electric vehicles that are being focused in the automotive industry. Right now, one of the biggest major employers is coming into Windsor, bringing 2,500 plus employees. It's an electrical vehicle battery manufacturing company. And along with that, there's a mega hospital already planned and going to be built.

It's currently in stage two. That's the construction pretty much going to start next year. With these two major projects, and along with that, there is existing bridge construction happening between the US and Canada. A bit of Windsor and Detroit. A lot of the growth happening in Detroit has worked out well for Windsor, because a lot of people who are in Windsor, they live in Windsor, but they work in Detroit.

Along with all the things a lot of people have an option to work from home. Windsor is attractive for those people because the weather is pretty good and the accessibility for major cities and a lot of happenings, big four games happen in Detroit. A lot of things that attract investors and also first-time home buyers from bigger cities to Windsor. Just a quick background there and jumping on to what's happening currently because, I was surprised to hear what's happening in Sarnia and London for the last one, two months.

It's a little bit opposite to Windsor. Our average home price actually I'm still studying, increasing from competitive to last month and before month and last year. Compared to last year, it's actually up by 35%. Right now, the prices are unbelievable. It's the highest in Windsor history. 723,000 is the average home price right now. And again, like many other markets, even our listings also started to go up. The number of new listings comparable to last year, we have 15% more. Right now, 1,050 And the properties are still selling.

That's why we have seen the prices are still going up. But again I agree with Georgia and Korey, where one thing we also noticed is the number of listings are going up and the number of offers on a property are going down. Before, just in Europe, in January, February, now we used to feel like a crazy amount of offers on almost 70%, 80% of the properties. We started to see less offers, even though 70% of the properties are still selling for the price. But the number of offers has gone up. The number of buyers are slowly reducing.

Why it's a good thing for investors. You have to keep in mind that means you can find motivated sellers. Me and my team and personally, I'm an investor too. We always look for those low hanging fruits where, you know, sellers who are motivated, but they don't have any offers so that the one you can get for discounted price. Those start to happen, which is a few months ago is really tough because everything is selling and anything in selling right now. We do see properties are sitting a little longer and that being said it's still like the average homes that are selling on the market.

The number of days is like nine days in less than two weeks. It's been consistently the same thing till 2020 before. In 2020, December, our average days were more like two weeks. But even in this crazy time period where the amount of listings going up, we are still the average homes, average days on the market is still low.

This is a quick overview on the number side, but again, I'm open for any questions that anyone has going back, like one thing that I want to mention here, this is the project I was talking about that is bringing a lot of attention to Windsor. This announcement happened just a few weeks ago where there's a big project. Like it's almost like 4.9 billion and grabbing a lot of things or attention.

I believe this happened just a few weeks ago when other markets saw the average price. I believe maybe because this was one of the reasons where we haven't seen that happen. Again the mega hospital, I mentioned, this is the stage we are in and that's one of the biggest projects. These two projects alone I believe will help in Windsor. Keep continuing to grow.

One more thing that I would like to mention, especially for investors who are looking for those cash flow properties. Again, you can find these stats on the Windsor board. What are the common properties like average property that are selling on the market, the price range for those average properties or between 420 to 699.

Out of thousand plus properties sold last month, almost 70% to 80% of the properties are sold between this price range which means, there are still opportunities in Windsor. That's a common question I get, are there still opportunities in Windsor? That's one of the reasons I bring up this point here. That's what's happening here. Feel free to shoot me any questions.

Alfonso: That's a great chart that you're showing there. Over 800 properties that are in that $420,000 to $700,000 marker. I know the same question I asked Korey. What type of strategies you said you're an investor yourself, you've worked with risky investors. You work with home buyers, or at least your team does as well. What type of strategy in the Windsor market are you seeing, coming to the forefront? I can tell you that the $420,000 to $700,000 range rent to own is working all day. In that price range, I love to see that in other markets where purchase prices are close to a million, it makes it a little bit tougher.

Aditya: One of the strategies that I'm focusing on and what we are pushing quite a lot. Actually, I would say two strategies. The best one that we are focusing on right now is buying a single family home that is preferably around half a million very potential to add attached ADU, another detached ADU.

Alfonso: it's those that are listening or that are wondering what ADU.

Aditya: Basically, duplex means you have two legal units. Triplex means three legal units, but the city of Windsor, I believe it's in other major cities as well, came up with this concept where if you have a single family home where you can make another two legal units. The way that those two legal units are structured is they call it like one has to be attached to your existing home. It could be like, for example, you have a single family home where you have a basement. This is a common attached ADU we have seen in the basement. You have this basement, if it meets the requirements you can convert that basement into another legal unit, so you can rent it out legally.

The Windsor also allows if you have a decent sized lot, where there is accessibility, alleyway if it meets certain requirements, you can put another unit in the back. If you have heard like lend me homes, tiny homes, whatever the term you want to call it somewhere from like 400 square feet, 2000 square feet, you can build in between that bending on what's your lot size.

The strategy is working out on variables right now. Like I have four projects on the go that I'm doing, 3 ADUs because the numbers are making a lot of sense. It would cost me around $300,000 purchase price plus $300,000 to do 2 ADUs. Again, give or take, that depends on also of course the how the existing house layout is, what square footage you're building for the detached ADU, but just to give a rough numbers, you have a single family home somewhere between $800,000 to $900,000 all together, all in for $900,000.

I have three units that can make the rough numbers, and will make me a thousand dollars cash flow. Getting that kind of cash flow is getting harder and harder. This strategy is what I came up with. Not me personally, but Windsor started to allow it, so we felt this is one of the best strategies. And along with that like Georgia mentioned, where multi-families have low rents. That's another strategy.

If you're looking at a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, those are quite a bit of properties in Windsor where you can find a good amount of inventory in a small multi-family area. Those properties where, you know, if you can develop the skills to negotiate with the tenants, maybe do a cash for key. If you can get those low rent tenants out and put some love into it and rent it out for the market trends. Those are other great strategies that are working out very well. Those are the two strategies that I personally use, and most of our clients use.

Alfonso: Wonderful, that is great information Aditya. You were fantastic, great information, and a wealth of knowledge. You and your team are helping many investors. You're an investor yourself. Definitely want a detail on your side if you're working in the Windsor and surrounding areas, definitely make sure to reach out. Thank you very much.