Last week, the Professionally Speaking column looked at what other groups were saying about Manitoba’s economy and real estate market.
Here’s more of what is being said by those in the know.
Martin Cash and Murray McNeill write regularly about real estate in their Winnipeg Free Press columns.
Quoting Greg Selinger, Manitoba’s Finance Minister, Cash wrote: “The Manitoba economy is in a good position to weather the financial storm that has devastated the American banking community and threatened global investments …”
He concluded that “the strength and diversity of Manitoba’s economy should minimize how it will be felt here …”
In mid-September, McNeill quoted Mario Lefebvre, director of the Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for Municipal Studies as saying: “Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) will ring up real growth of 3.3 per cent this year — good for the third-best among the 13 cities covered in its Autumn 2008 Metropolitan Outlook report. However, that rosy picture will start to fade a little after this year … with real growth falling to 2.8 per cent in 2009 and to an average of 2.7 per cent a year for the next four years combined. But even if that happens, there’s no cause for alarm … we are just expected to come back down to a bit more normal level of activity. That is still very solid growth.”
McNeill said that this year the board expects the Canadian economy to grow at only about half the pace of the Winnipeg economy — 1.7 per cent — as a dramatic slowdown in manufacturing activity in Central Canada dampens economic growth in cities like Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa-Gatineau.
Still sounds pretty good for Manitoba.
Calvin Linberg, of the 2008 Canadian Real Estate Association, summarized: “These days REALTORS® in Canada face a lot of questions about the real estate market, real estate price bubbles and the value of a home. That’s because we are at the end of an unusually active period in Canadian real estate — 2007 was a record year for many of the things we use to monitor the real estate market, including the average MLS® residential price. We must remember that all markets go through cycles and remember that the national housing market is actually made up of different communities. Real estate markets are local and every community, and every area, is different in terms of trends and pricing.”
So when reading the headlines and watching the news, just remember that bad news sells papers. But in Manitoba, we may be able to look for the good news in the bad news. Experts from many different disciplines seem to be agreeing that we might just be a little different when compared to the rest of the country.
WinnipegREALTORS® and the Winnipeg Real Estate News will try to avoid the sensational and focus on the facts — local facts.
The resale market is made up of sellers and buyers. And what has been good for sellers for the past five years, may finally start to favour buyers. A healthier market is a more balanced market.
We won’t look at the real estate world through rose-coloured glasses, we won’t put lipstick on a pig, and we won’t put “spin” on our reporting. We will simply report the facts, tell the truth and gather and disseminate accurate data.
After all, we’ve been in this business since 1903. Our reputation is based on timely, accurate and reliable real estate information. Our charter calls for us to gather and disseminate accurate data. We will continue to uphold that mission.