By Jeremy Davis
As 2023 winds down, this year’s final Real Estate Market Matters column will reflect on some of the important activities the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board and its 2500 Members led throughout the year.
In February of 2023, the annual Market Insights real estate event brought together national and local industry experts to offer insights into the previous year of real estate market conditions focusing on residential, commercial, retail, office, and industrial markets while highlighting economic trends and forecasts. We were pleased to have Robert Hogue, Assistant Chief Economist with the Royal Bank of Canada as the Keynote Speaker. This event brings together over 450 residential and commercial real estate professionals, financial, and industry business partners, and local media.
In April, Rena Prefontaine was elected as the 2023-2024 President of the Winnipeg Regional Real
Estate Board in its 120th year. Prefontaine has been a REALTOR® for over 15 years, a broker for 8 years, and in 2021 started a new brokerage, eXp Realty which has welcomed over 100 REALTORS® to the team. She has always been passionate about giving back to community organizations and volunteering her time on Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board committees to pass on her experience for the benefit of the real estate industry.
The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board is active in the prioritization of efforts to support the communities we serve. This has been a proud part of our history and one we will continue into the future. These efforts were on full display in 2023 as part of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board’s Citizens Hall of Fame program, which saw its 49th inductee announced on June 27, 2023, when Kathleen Richardson was posthumously inducted. She was celebrated as an extraordinary leader in Winnipeg who, over the course of her lifetime, was a renowned philanthropist and long-time supporter of Winnipeg’s arts community. She held several volunteer board positions including with the Manitoba Arts Council, The Winnipeg Foundation, Dalnavert Museum, Stratford Festival, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She served on the Board of Directors and was the Honourary President for the Royal
Winnipeg Ballet, where she consistently supported the organization through annual donations, as well as contributions to special events and capital campaigns. She also championed the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.
The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board Citizens Hall of Fame was founded in 1986 to recognize citizens who have contributed to Winnipeg’s quality of life with exceptional achievements in leadership and community service. The criteria for induction to the Citizens Hall of Fame requires that the individual must have brought recognition to Winnipeg or have made outstanding contributions to the quality of life and development of the city. The inductee’s achievements may be local, national, or international in scope. This unique award program displays the likenesses of Winnipeg luminaries through a commissioned bronze bust that is displayed in Assiniboine Park along with a QR code linking to a description of their accomplishments.
Advocacy is a function of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board which seeks to support the promotion of initiatives that create housing supply, make housing more affordable and ensure homeownership is a dream that comes true for this and future generations. There are advocacy efforts focused on City of Winnipeg issues like residential infill development, improving the building and occupancy permit process, the need for infrastructure that supports communities and where people live. This extends specifically through initiatives like the City of Winnipeg’s $192 million application to the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund. With a market region that extends outside Winnipeg, there is also a focus on things like the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region’s Plan20-50 for regional growth and impediments to growth and development in the areas we serve.
The Real Estate Market Matters column in the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate News is where many of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board’s advocacy issues and topics connected to the real estate industry are highlighted and discussed. There were columns written on Winnipeg as one of the top five cities for single-income earners to afford a home, the City of Winnipeg’s multi-year balanced budget process, the Manitoba Home Builders Association’s Parade of Homes, the Province of Manitoba’s Budget 2023, the Government of Canada’s Budget 2023, the announcement of Rena Prefontaine as President of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board, Earth Day, the CentrePort Canada Rail Park, history of the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board, the Manitoba Real Estate Association’s (MREA) fair school funding campaign, the Smoke Alarm For Every Family Program (SAFE), interpreting real estate market data, a mid-summer Lake Country real estate market update, MREA’s Blueprint for Housing Affordability, MREA’s welcome to the new provincial government and highlight of housing policy promises, the Canadian Real Estate Association’s Political Action Committee Days advocating to MPs on housing and homeownership, having your say on the future of the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region’s Plan20-50, and a recap of housing and real estate related issues in 2023.
The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board is proud to, for over 42 years, provide a complimentary weekly publication of our premier real estate marketing publication, the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate News. The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate News produces 10,000 weekly copies with a pickup rate of 96% and is distributed to over 350 locations throughout Winnipeg and across our market region and available at financial institutions, grocery stores and various REALTOR® offices.
The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate News website provides helpful information and is a great resource when searching for a REALTOR® and offers valuable tools such as a mortgage calculator closing costs and Land Transfer Tax, mortgage terminology, a moving checklist and a list of our Business Partners and Affiliate Associates, and resources for those moving to Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate News website averages over 500,000 monthly page views with year-to-date totals of over 5,000,000.
As we reflect on a year that was marked by steady market conditions in the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board’s market region, our over 2,500 REALTOR® Members continued to show why they are the professional experts you want supporting you when looking at one of the largest financial decisions in most people’s lifetimes. REALTORS® are trained in understanding real estate market valuation with access to comparable sales data from the MLS® and the Canadian Real Estate Association’s Home Price Index which helps provide buyers and sellers with a big advantage.
Thank you for following along in 2023 and we look forward to serving readers in 2024 with our first issue of the new year on stands January 12.
Jeremy Davis is the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board’s Director External Relations & Market Intelligence.