New Homes
New Homes
Parade will feature more than 100 new homes
After enduring an extremely long, cold and painful winter, we welcome the 2014 Spring Parade of Homes, which opens at noon today, Saturday, March 1 and runs through Sunday, March 23. The Manitoba Home Builders Association is proud to present 122 new homes on display for everyone to enjoy.
Show home hours are Monday through Thursday from 3 to 8 p.m.,
Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Show homes are closed on Fridays except by prior appointment
Sales staff are in each home, ready to explain the unique and special features of that home. Feel free to ask lots of questions about the various builders and suppliers. After all, MHBA new home builders pride themselves on building the best new homes in Canada. Each visitor is sure to come away with new ideas and concepts to incorporate into their new home.
This year, 36 different builders are featuring the finest new homes in 31 unique neighbourhoods. Both single family detached homes and condominiums are on display. Quality, choice and affordability are all key components for each new home.
A special feature of this years' Parade is that you get to select the winners. In past years, a panel of five judges visited groups of five homes and rated them on a variety of features. This year, every person who visits every home gets to rank that home on a five point scale in four separate categories.
Simply hold your smartphone over the QR code in each home and give it from one to five stars in each of these categories:
Overall Value and Quality of Home; Functionality, Traffic Flow and Room Proportion; Special Design Features; and Interior Visual Appeal.
The Spring Parade of Homes has something for everyone. If you're looking for that first new home, this is your opportunity to see the widest variety at one time. If you're considering selling your existing home for more space, less space, more yard, less yard, newer amenities and a different design, everything that you could possibly be looking for is featured at the Spring Parade of Homes.
If you just want to see the best of the best and envision your dream home, this is the place to do it. Your new home starts with the Spring Parade of Homes.
The Spring Parade of Homes runs from March 1 to 23. If you missed the Parade magazine in your Winnipeg Free Press home delivery, it's available online at www.homebuilders.mb.ca or www.winnipegfreepress.com. These sites will also lead you to the ranking pages for each new home in the event that you didn't have your phone with you while visiting. You can also pick up a copy at any Steinbach Credit Union.
We invite Parade attendees to submit their comments and questions on our Twitter and Facebook pages. Come early and come often to the Spring Parade of Homes.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Homebuilders' Association.
New Homes
Steady budget should help housing industry
Many people complained that the recent federal budget lacked a certain pizzazz and didn't have the excitement and incentives of other budgets. What is it about jobs, infrastructure and deficit reduction that they don't like?
The Canadian Home Builders Association supported the federal budget because it did what it was supposed to do: move Canada ahead.
The New Building Canada Plan will contribute $53 billion in infrastructure funding. Infrastructure needs have been identified as one of Canadians' greatest concerns. This is certainly no different in Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba. Crumbling infrastructure in an old community has long been a local priority.
These federal funds can also assist housing affordability in the municipalities as they should not have to fund infrastructure on the backs of new home buyers now that these federal dollars are available. For too long, new development has borne the brunt of municipal funding shortfalls even though it has more than paid its' fair share of the costs.
The Immigrant Expression of Interest system will allow those foreign trained individuals to move up the immigration queue depending upon the demand for their particular occupation. This will allow immediate attention to skilled labour shortfalls. The Canada Apprentice Loan will allow young Canadians to achieve the training they need domestically.
The Canada Jobs Grant has been the subject of considerable discussion recently with the provinces and the federal government jockeying for a position that may be amenable to all. The program starts on April 1 of this year, and it will be critical to get these dollars in the hands of Canadian workers and businesses that need to train people in skill sets that are currently lacking.
Without proper identification, recruiting and training, the gap between demand and supply will continue to widen and we run the risk of falling further behind. This column will not point fingers and assign any blame; just urge all parties to resolve their differences and get people to work.
Finally, the federal government is calling for a surplus budget by 2015. Cynics question the timing as it is just before the next election. Others applaud the fact that the government may be able to achieve this and challenge all other levels of government to follow suit.
Back to the initial premise: If skilled labour is addressed, if new jobs are created, if the infrastructure problem is being addressed and if the deficit is being eliminated, it seems like we're headed in the right direction. Not flashy, but effective.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Homebuilders' Association.
New Homes
National survey sheds light on home ownership
In 2010, the federal government replaced the long-form census questionnaire with a voluntary household survey called the National Household Survey. It produced some interesting results that can give us some national direction on housing.
To no one's surprise, those in the 15-to-24 age group make up a very small percentage of household headship and home-ownership rates. These rates double and triple respectively for the 25-to-34 age group.
This should give some direction to those building and selling homes, selling furniture and appliances or doing renovations. This 10-year span of the population is making major purchasing decisions on a first-time basis and should be a primary marketing target. Although numbers jump again in the 35-to-44 age group, this is more of a natural progression than a major shift or pattern.
The changes are not nearly as dramatic for the 45-54, 55-64, 65-74 and 75+ age groups. Their numbers remain fairly consistent. Even the empty-nesters and down-sizers are still homeowners, just with different homes.
As we all know, baby-boomers were raised with the philosophy of owning your home as quickly as possible and eliminating their mortgages before the normal amortization period. In 1981, with interest rates in excess of 21 per cent, this way of thinking was understandable. But this sense of repayment urgency dissipated considerably when interest rates fell to single digits, and even more over the past few years with record-low rates.
Those of us who are still stuck in our baby-boomer mentality have a difficult time understanding this philosophy, but we must accept it as Gen X and Gen Y have a different mindset. And since only 0.31 per cent of all mortgages are in arrears by three or more months, maybe it's time to acknowledge that they know what they're doing when it comes to budgeting.
The National Household Survey identified one million housing units, or seven per cent of the total stock, that are in need of major repairs. Homes built before 1920 make up about 17 per cent of the stock, but those built in the 1946-1960 and 1971-1980 periods are the largest groups requiring major renovations.
Given these trends and numbers, it appears that both the new-home and renovation industries will be on solid ground for a number of years.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Homebuilders' Association.
New Homes
Building-product market continues to grow
For the past seven years, Canada has been a net importer of bu 156 Lake Bend Road, Bridgwater Lakes ilding products and materials. Prior to that, a healthy U.S. market ensured a solid demand for our raw and manufactured materials — Canadian exports were a valuable resource south of the border and throughout the world.
However, when the housing crash took place, exports of Canadian building products fell by more than 40 per cent between 2007 and 2009. Although there has been a gradual increase of about two per cent per year, it’s not enough to get back to where we were. The Canadian housing market did not fall nearly as dramatically as the U.S. market and also rebounded considerably faster, so our demand for building products has grown accordingly. As recently as 2012, we spent twice as much on imports as we brought in from exports.
That trend slowed a bit last year, largely due to a slowdown in housing starts in some larger Canadian urban centres. However, things look brighter for the immediate future, and it’s not because of reduction, but rather growth.
American housing starts are projected to continue to climb in 2014, increasing demand for Canadian building products and boosting our export market. Recent trends indicate that wood, petrochemical and asphalt products are experiencing the largest growth. Exports of masonry, electrical and paint products are growing more modestly, but they are still increasing. These are offset in part by declines in steel, tools and machinery. In that the Canadian manufacturing sector is closely tied to the U.S. economy for exports, a recovery in their housing market is good news north of the border.
If there is one lesson to be learned from this, it’s that we must continue to diversify, both in terms of exports and imports. When the United States stopped buying, Canada stopped producing in some sectors and that hurt our economy.
Similarly, we were too heavily reliant upon our American neighbours for imports of building materials. When they stopped buying their own products, they stopped manufacturing, and we were forced to look elsewhere. Canada has gone from a 75-per-cent U.S. dependency for imported building products 15 years ago to less than 60 per cent today. China has been the largest beneficiary of this shift.
Canada must be mindful to ensure that we have a balanced or even positive import-export ratio with China and other countries to ensure the health of our producers.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Homebuilders’ Association.