We may have flooding, mosquitoes and painfully cold winters, but we continue to have a buoyant housing market. Compared to most of the other housing markets in the country, Manitoba real estate continues to be on an upswing for both buyers and sellers.
Debbie Goodfellow, president of WinnipegREALTORS, recently attended the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) annual general meeting in Ottawa, where she heard gloomy stories of how the recession is wreaking havoc on housing markets across the country. Manitoba is the exception, along with Saskatchewan and a pocket in the Maritimes.
"Winnipeg is a stable market," says Goodfellow. "Now it's come home to us -- we don't have those peaks and valleys like other markets."
Goodfellow's advice to Winnipeg home buyers and sellers is to stop watching CNN and national news programs for information on the real estate market.
"You don't listen to a weather report from Vancouver and decide how to dress for the day," she says. "The same goes for real estate -- it's all local."
In fact, Winnipeg continues to experience a strong housing market. For the first quarter of 2009, WinnipegREALTORS reported the second best first quarter of its 106-year history. That's quite a feat given the recession, the economic uncertainty facing so many industries and the fact that we experienced one of the coldest winters in recent history.
When she took over as president of WinnipegREALTORS at the beginning of the year, Goodfellow says she was quite cautiously optimistic for 2009. In January, she said it looked like the market could have gone either way, but the year is turning out to be another positive one.
"The consumer has gone from being nervous to confident," says Goodfellow. "The mood is quite buoyant and people are still proceeding with their plans."
The real estate market has really picked up in the last month, she notes, as more buyers start looking for houses in the spring and more listings are going up all the time. As for the type of market, it's changed from a strong seller's market in recent years to a more balanced market.
For the first quarter, year-to-date MLS sales were down 10 per cent compared to last year, but dollar volume only dropped four per cent compared to the first quarter of 2008. The number of listings was up 11 per cent from last year, testament to the fact that the real estate market has become more balanced.
"We have a lot more listings," notes Goodfellow. "But we still have pockets where houses come up and are highly sought after with multiple offers."
For the most part, sellers are getting close to the list price for their houses. But, as with anything, there are exceptions to the rule. In one week, Goodfellow says her company, Goodfellow & Goodfellow Real Estate, listed one house that got three offers and sold well over the list price, but had another listing where they had to reduce the price and it was on the market for some time.
The only downside these days in our local market is the weather, not the economy. Housing listings and sales are down in areas like the Interlake, Selkirk and south of the city due to the poor weather and flood concerns.
"We're not affected by the economy in Manitoba, but we've had a long cold stretch and then two snowstorms and now the flooding," says Goodfellow.
Looking ahead, Goodfellow says she continues to be optimistic about the Winnipeg real estate market. The average home sale price was up five per cent for the first quarter compared to 2008, rising to $209,254 from $199,546 last year, setting a new record for Manitoba. That's largely due to the fact that there has been a shift in sales to higher-priced homes, with more houses selling over the $200,000 mark. Condominium sales are up by four per cent for the first quarter, with prices up three per cent. The average condo sale price rose to $175,429 from $169,947 in 2008.
"Overall, the market is really good," says Goodfellow. "We have balanced market conditions where buyers have more to choose from, interest rates are at historic lows, and our prices remain firm if not even higher than last year."
