Waterloo Region Housing Market: Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge Prices | September 2026

Waterloo Region is really two markets in the Cornerstone Association of REALTORS’ monthly report: Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge, each with its own MLS® HPI benchmark. Cornerstone’s release gives those benchmarks and the regional totals, and the ITSO “Monthly Indicators” report it posts for the region adds medians, averages, sales and inventory by home type. The figures here are for September 2026, released in October 2026. The Canadian housing market overview explains the benchmark.

Benchmark prices, September 2026

Cornerstone, September 2026; change from a year earlier.

Cambridge’s benchmark was 5.2% above Kitchener-Waterloo’s. Over the year Cambridge held up better than Kitchener-Waterloo, a reminder that the region is not one market.

Prices by home type across the region

ITSO Monthly Indicators for Waterloo Region, September 2026; change from the same month a year earlier.

Detached homes still sold close to their asking price. Single-family buyers paid 100.6% of the list price on average, against 100.0% for townhouses and condos and 100.4% for all homes (a year earlier the overall figure was 100.6%). Townhouse and condo sales fell to 141 from 178, while single-family sales were 268 against 329.

Sales and supply

Sales were 409 against 1,230 new listings, a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 33.3%, below the 45% to 65% band CREA treats as balanced. Cornerstone put the year-over-year change at -18.9% for sales and -16.7% for new listings, and 3.8 months of supply at month end, above CREA’s 3.6-month seller’s-market line (how CREA reads it). Single-family homes alone had 3.2 months of supply on the ITSO 12-month basis, against 4.8 for townhouses and condos, so the squeeze is in detached houses. Cornerstone’s CEO, Bill Duce, said Waterloo Region had the tightest supply of Cornerstone’s markets; its supply compares with 4.6 months in Hamilton-Burlington.

Buying costs in Kitchener-Waterloo

A Kitchener-Waterloo home at the benchmark needs at least $38,020 down (6% of the price); with that down payment, mortgage default insurance adds about $23,687 (4.00% of the loan).

Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge add no transfer tax of their own, and Ontario’s on the Kitchener-Waterloo benchmark comes to $9,079. With the full first-time buyer refund of $4,000, a first purchase pays $5,079 (Ontario calculator).

Kitchener’s 2026 residential rate, combining city, Region of Waterloo and education levies, is 1.405998% of MPAC’s assessed value, or $1,406 a year for each $100,000 of assessment; assessments still reflect January 1, 2016 values, not today’s prices. For a like-for-like comparison, BMA’s 2025 municipal study, which the City of Barrie reproduces, priced the yearly tax on a detached bungalow at $4,415 in Kitchener, $4,424 in Waterloo and $4,575 in Cambridge.

Income needed against local incomes

The Kitchener-Waterloo benchmark home calls for about $142,600 of household income with minimum down; in Cambridge, $149,400 (method). The Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo census metropolitan area’s median household income was $92,000 in the 2021 Census, for income year 2020. The Kitchener-Waterloo figure is 1.5 times that. A townhouse or condo at the regional median for that group needs about $124,600.

Related pages

• Guelph housing market
• London housing market
• Ontario housing market
• Kitchener-Waterloo rental market
• Income percentiles in Kitchener-Waterloo