Brandon named most affordable housing market: Report

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This article was published 22/07/2022 (1154 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The most affordable housing market in Canada is in and around the Wheat City.

That’s according to real estate company Re/Max, which released the results of its annual housing affordability report earlier this week.

“Based on average residential selling price, Brandon, Man. ranked as the most affordable market in 2022, replacing Winnipeg which was most affordable in Re/Max Canada’s 2021 ranking,” the report states.

Attached to the report is a graphic showing statistics for 10 regions in Western Canada. On that graphic, it’s stated that the average sale price for a home in Brandon this year is $310,252, up from $304,929 last year — a 1.75 per cent increase.

Re/Max estimates that figure will drop around five per cent by the end of the year.

When it comes to affordability based on the share of homeowner income spent on mortgage payments, Brandon ranked third at 27.73 per cent, behind Regina (26.94 per cent) and Red Deer, Alta., (25.86 per cent).

The study also drills down into which neighbourhoods in those centres are most affordable. For Brandon, the neighbourhoods listed are Souris, Wawanesa and Rivers, suggesting that the study is considering the Brandon region and not just the city itself.

“I think we’re good value,” Michael Barrett of Re/Max ValleyView Realty told the Sun on Thursday. “Manitoba generally, and particularly rural Manitoba, has always been a slow and steady market rather than the boom and bust you see in other provinces and larger centres. You see that in Toronto and in Alberta with their reliance on the auto industry. We’re fairly diversified in our market, even though we’re ag-based.”

That, he said, means that when one market in the Brandon area might be underperforming, others are likely to be better performing and balancing things out.

Barrett also said he’d read that Manitoba is the lowest-ranking province when it comes to foreign investment from non-residents purchasing property. He doesn’t know what exactly the effect of that is, but believes it has an impact on demand.

“Last year, the Sun reported that there was a nine per cent increase in housing prices in Brandon in 2021, but it was still an incredibly affordable place to buy, not just in Canada but in Manitoba,” said Warren Neufeld, president of Brandon Area Realtors.

Though Neufeld owns Royal LePage Portage Realty in Portage la Prairie, he explained that the city is considered part of the Brandon Area Realtors’ catchment area because it and Winnipeg have the only remaining real estate associations outside of the umbrella Manitoba Real Estate Association.

He said he believes that Manitoba has been a good real estate market for decades, especially when looking at more expensive markets such as Toronto and Vancouver. Like Barrett, he said he believes that Manitoba isn’t as affected by the peaks and valleys of the country’s real estate market.

“Over the course of time, there’s been a steady increase in pricing that follows general trends, but I think what happens in a broader sense for Canadians, our path to wealth includes real estate,” Neufeld said.

“Manitoba continues — and it’s been shown in reports like the Re/Max one — to be very stable. It’s going to be a growing asset, but it’s also very affordable and it puts people on a path to generational wealth over the decades. You buy a house and take 25 years to pay it off, it’s grown four, five, six per cent a year over those years and all of a sudden you have a real asset.”

That affordability, he said, only gets better when you go 15 to 20 kilometres away from Brandon.

Earlier this week, the Manitoba Real Estate Association reported that just under 2,000 homes were sold in Manitoba in June, a new monthly record. However, month-over-month sales declined for the first time this year.

» cslark@brandonsun.com, with files from Kyle Darbyson

» Twitter: @ColinSlark