
Living in Winnipeg: Renting and buying affordability breakdown
Global News
The city's rent prices haven't seen many changes over the years, but the housing market is facing swinging highs and lows creating challenges for first-time buyers.
Despite the rental market trending up all over the country, Winnipeg is still more affordable for those who aren’t looking to own property.
According to Paul Danison of Rentals.ca Network, Inc., the city’s rent prices haven’t seen many changes over the years.
“Unlike Winnipeg’s weather, the rental market is calm and steady and very little movement with rents in that city. A one-bedroom at $1,164 is completely flat, monthly and yearly, and a two-bedroom at $1,521 average a month is only at 4.3 per cent year over year,” Danison said.
Danison says price spikes are linked to supply and demand.
“Winnipeg, more than anywhere else, has a lot of the lot of units coming on the market. So there’s more there. People after the pandemic have made life decisions … they’re moving more into the suburbs, looking for more room, looking for an office space.”
In terms of buying property, Peter Squire of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board says a lack of listings drove costs up, but as more homes go up for sale, prices are seeing a decline.
“We’ve doubled our active listings to over around 4,000 where we were under 2,000 at the beginning of the year. So our prices have come back down.”
Squire says prices were around $390,000 in August — down from over $450,000 and back to the average listed in the first quarter of 2022.