Manitoba bucks national trend as new home prices rise

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Michael Fray's is here. He's a president of the Winnipeg Real Estate Board, Regional Real Estate Board, and he's here via Zoom. Hi to you.

[00:00:08]Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:09]Thanks for being here. So, what's your sense of why we're seeing this 1.2% increase in Manitoba different from the rest of the country?

[00:00:16]Yeah, well, you know, if you took a look and just looked at the number 1.2% uh, you know, year-over-year growth, you'd kind of look at it and say, "Well, this is pretty stable, strong, you know, manageable growth. That's what we like to see." You know, and that's really determined by supply and demand and um, costs to build as well, the price of land, etc., cost of infrastructure, and all those things rise. So, typically, um, when you see that number just in isolation, it it looked pretty good.

[00:00:40]It's not really that much of a big story, to be honest. But, what happens is when you compare to the rest of Canada, now it becomes this um, why are we going up when the rest of them are going down? And so, uh, I I hate to do a big massive history lesson, but it's a it's a quick trip, right, down memory lane to the pandemic. And what we had here, if you remember the pandemic, we had a massive supply nationwide uh, supply shortage, right, across the whole country. And we had a growing population, immigration was uh, was uh, you know, really driving population growth in Canada and in Manitoba, and we had this complete imbalance. The pendulum was on one side, where we had massive housing shortage and massive demand. And then everyone started building like crazy, right? And so, uh, you saw municipalities and cities and provinces and the feds even make new housing policy to try to encourage more building, and so, everyone started to build more, including Manitoba. But, in Toronto and Vancouver, some of those big city centers, they rely um, mainly on condos.

[00:01:36]So, they built thousands and thousands of new condos. And then what happened in Winnipeg, we don't really build a whole lot of condos. We built some condos, but it's primarily residential detached homes. And so, we just have a slower build process because we're not building thousands of condos. Anyways, now it comes to, you know, Trump gets in and we have tariffs, we have trade wars, we have Iran, we have back to inflation, price of the pumps, slowing economy, and all that all that building that happened in Toronto, Vancouver, and some of the other major markets, there wasn't the demand now to gobble that up. And not to mention that we slowed down immigration.

[00:02:09]So, the demand went away from those markets, and you have this oversupply, which is now why you see the prices go down for new construction, like the economist mentioned. But now in Winnipeg, a different story. We didn't have this shrinking demand that we saw in other places. We typically Manitoba and Winnipeg, we weather these you know economic storms better than most. We have a very diverse economy. Our economy still grew, our population still grew, and what that meant is demand for housing was still there. Not to mention [clears throat] the affordability. So, our demand didn't go away, and we have the the corresponding supply now to meet. And so, that's why you saw prices go up. We didn't get this oversaturated oversupply situation. We also had I think a record number of starts last year. I hope I'm getting this correct.

[00:02:52]But then we had challenges with with completions, because there's a needs in the construction industry to finish jobs. So, does that that also does it how does that also factor in?

[00:03:02]Yeah, well, the other thing with the starts, so we definitely like I said, we're starting to build. We had record number of starts last year. So, those are going to come to fruition this year.

[00:03:10]And again, it does take time. But the majority of those, I believe it's 75% of all of them. I think it's 75% are multi-family rental purposed. So, that that adds to our rental market, not so much the resale market.

[00:03:23]>> Okay. So, that is that's a big point there, too.

[00:03:26]>> Okay, so if someone's looking in the resale market and they're looking for a new house here, if we look at the numbers, what does it actually mean about how much more people can might be expecting to pay if they're buying a new house in Winnipeg, for example? Yeah, well, the good news is there's a you know, a quote, a mantra in real estate that we live by is like, you live in the payments, not in the price. And so, you know, affordability comes into what's your actual cost of your mortgage every month, because that's what you live in, right? That's what you are you know, budgeting around as a family. That's what it's going to or you're going to make groceries or not.

[00:03:55]Um and so with the price can go up, but if it can you know, prices can go up and it can become more affordable if that makes sense depending on rates and other things. So, here's a couple of really interesting things. Um so, even though prices are going up in the new home construction, it's more accessible now than it was, I'll say, a couple years ago.

[00:04:10]>> Because of the interest rates on monthly payments, you're going to say Interest rates have stabilized, but also now we have no GST for first-time buyers on new construction, so that saves them 5% right off the cuff.

[00:04:21]Um as well, there's more There's the first-time home buyers um tax savings account, so they can save money that way for their their homes.

[00:04:28]Uh and so, there's these new creative programs as well. We're seeing builders build more accessible um uh more affordable new construction. So, townhomes, single-family single-family attached homes, again, townhomes um which it actually makes, again, new construction more attainable. There's some parts I know I'm rambling, sorry.

[00:04:45]There's some parts in the city right in in East Transcona, you know, they're actually can get um you know, new homes for still under $600,000, uh which is unheard of in other major markets. So, they're they're the builders and developers and the community are trying to build more accessible, more affordable homes as well. So, there is some I want to interject here just for a second. I want to break out two things that you said there. So, when it comes to I I just want to get back to the question about the overall price. So, I I respect what you're saying about the monthly cost, but how much more is like is that $600,000 home was it was it 550 last year? Like what are the what what is the actual increase overall look like?

[00:05:20]Mhm. So, um in the right now, the average sale price for all of the not just new construction, so the for a residential single-family home is $500,000. And that is up from last year about 7%. So, uh quick math, it has gone up, but it hasn't gone up by $50,000. Um we're talking about, you know, 20, 25,000. If my math is I'm a little I'm a little shoddy on that. A little shoddy, I mean.

[00:05:43]Um and when you talked about construction and building differently and using different materials, I'm just curious, when you think about the cost that are driving the increase, how much did construction materials have to do with it?

[00:05:53]Uh well, it has a lot to do with it.

[00:05:54]Now, again, going back to, you know, if you are a large builder, like a Qualico, right? You are buying massive amounts of uh of materials and you're sitting on it. And so, when you buy that, it's different than when you actually build.

[00:06:06]Whereas a small builder, they're obviously they're purchasing a lot more frequently. And so, it's much more susceptible to some of the the changes in the market. So, um but materials and labor are of two main drivers, plus land cost. And so, those are the drivers, and we've seen costs increase. Now, it's not, I'll say, you know, 5 years ago, you know, building materials were skyrocketing.

[00:06:28]We've had some of that. It's It's not as bad as it was, but with the tariffs and some of the trade deals, you know, certain materials like aluminum and steel are still are are rising, but lumber has been relatively stable. So, um short answer, materials have gone up, but not that much. Um anything to add that you think that people should know if they're um either buying We talked a lot about buyers. So, what about if people are looking at selling?

[00:06:51]Yeah, so selling is Right now, we're in our spring market. We are in sort of the the peak of the market. It's a great time uh you know, it's, you know, to to sell. It's a great time to buy. It's always a good time to buy. But the important thing for sellers right now is there are such unique market dynamics within pockets of neighborhoods and pockets of price points.

[00:07:11]Um let's say, you know, early spring, it was, you know, multiple offers. And we had in April, 52% of homes saw sold over list price for single-family homes, uh which is which is which is high, which means it's a very competitive market.

[00:07:24]But you What a seller needs to be careful of is expecting I'm going to get 30 offers and 150,000 over. Um you know, those stories are out there, but we can't bank on it. Um especially with the shifting market with more inventory coming in spring. Uh best advice for a seller, get a local professional, get a great realtor who knows your neighborhood, knows the price points, because every market is different in Winnipeg and every price point is different. And so, it is really subtle, it is really nuanced. Don't get caught in expecting my house is just going to obviously get 30 offers. Um, you know, you have to really uh take a look at the numbers and have a very strategic plan for your home in your neighborhood. Uh which neighborhoods have gone crazy right now or all stayed stable at that always sells for a good good good tick?

[00:08:05]Yeah, um there's always like the high demand neighborhoods uh are going to be uh I mean, there there's plenty in Winnipeg. But, you also think like the ones that aren't that that can't really expand anymore. So, places like Riverview was one of my favorite neighbors to to kind of pick on in this situation, cuz it's centrally located, it's beautiful, it's by the river, right? Churchill Drive, all that stuff.

[00:08:23]And there's just like there's nowhere else for it to go. So, that's and there's just not a lot of turnover there. There's only a few homes that come up every month typically in Riverview. So, that one typically sees a lot of uh activity, a lot of rising prices. Um River Heights is always popular. Um you know, even in part sections of North Kildonan. Uh you know, in Bun's Creek area, those prices always kind of seem to go up because there's just they're very unique, they're established neighborhoods, and they're just they're not making more of those.

[00:08:48]Uh so, those are some of the neighborhoods, but uh anything around that average sale price of about 500 is going to going to see a lot of attention. All right, Michael. Nice to have you on uh talking about this and helping us understand some of the trends and the numbers.

[00:09:00]Yeah, I apologize for like rattling off like just verbal >> Don't you explain everything for us. I would have interjected, believe me, I'm a good interjector, but I was learning a lot through there. So, so were the listeners. Appreciate your time.

[00:09:11]So, good. My wife says I speak too quickly, so I apologize.

[00:09:13]>> [laughter] >> Not at all. Take care.

[00:09:15]All right, thanks. You too.