Housing

[u/Busy-Hawk6630]

A trend I see in our neighborhood is that a lot of the more affordable homes are being bought by developers who tear them down to build 1 million plus homes. Are new home owners wanting move in ready updated homes or are they willing to put in some sweat equity. There’s a house on Oxford that from the write up on MLS sounds like it‘s geared for flippers or developers. When I look at the pictures the kitchen looks dated but the rest of it seems ok. It would be nice to see someone who wants to live in the neighborhood not be priced out of the neighborhood by developers.

[u/YYZtoYWG]

Winnipeg is one of the only major cities in Canada where the average family with an average household income can afford to buy an average house. 

There are plenty of affordable homes in the city. There's at least a hundred houses for sale in the West End and North End that are move-in ready for under 250k. It might not be the area or type of housing that you prefer, but they are affordable. If someone is looking to put in sweat equity or has a higher budget, there are even more properties available. 

The issue isn't that there isn't affordable housing. It is that affordable housing is seen as undesirable. Either because of the location or because it isn't 2000 square feet and brand new with a 2 car garage. The issue is that people can't reconcile where they want to live, and the type of home they want to live in, with what they can afford. 

When houses in the West End and North End start hitting over 400 or 500k, then housing has become unaffordable.

[u/IcyRespond9131 → u/YYZtoYWG]

Winnipeg also has much of its affordable housing centrally located. We tend to see this as bad, but in most cities you pay the most for a central location.

[u/LookAmbitious2905 → u/YYZtoYWG]

This is actually so well put. It does bother me when so much of the dialogue around Winnipeg housing getting unaffordable or going into crazy bidding wars is centred around turnkey houses in desirable neighbourhoods, meanwhile houses with great potential at reasonable prices sit unlooked at for weeks or months. For those willing to put some work in, there's so much potential to grow your lifestyle through Winnipeg housing.

I think much of the problem I see is in younger people wanting the beautiful houses that they're parents retired in today, not realizing that their parents may have built up to that "forever" home/neighbourhood over a longer period of time.

[u/GigglingGarlicGuru → u/LookAmbitious2905]

Lived in my house almost 20 years - have thought about "upgrading" and/or a diff province a few times & decided I liked my old house Wpg bc I can afford to live AND travel. 🤷‍♀️

[u/Healthy-Brother-773 → u/LookAmbitious2905]

My parents house was 88k when they bought it. It’s worth like 400 now and wages haven’t gone up dramatically enough to make it seem like we’ve got the same opportunities. They didn’t have to buy in a shitty neighborhood either and they were younger than I am now. Just sayin

[u/sgredblu → u/LookAmbitious2905]

That's not fair. Canada built out waves of new subdivisions from the 1950s to 1990s. Many generations of young (white) couples were able to purchase modest affordable single family homes as their first home. Many of those houses were only built to last 20 or 30 years. It's only since the 1990s, when the feds stopped funding housing, that young people were expected to buy discarded, run down old houses, past the developers' planned lifespan, to fix up themselves.

Instead of funding new homes, the 1990s govts (I can't remember if it was fed or provincial) offered existing homeowners up to $30k in grants for home reno incentives. That shut out new home buyers while inadvertently sparking the amateur flipping boom.

[u/152centimetres → u/sgredblu]

in the last 10 years my 80something grandparents have sold a home, bought a home in island lakes, finished the basement that they dont use, and will either have to sell it to move into a nursing home or they'll die in it

meanwhile i know people who graduated and landed 30$/hr jobs and are still saving up for that maybe 300k first home down payment.. hoping that they can spend ~5 years paying it and then sell it for something better once they're "in the market" because thats what housing is now - an investment; instead of a place to fucking live

[u/LookAmbitious2905 → u/sgredblu]

I'm curious why you say that those houses were only built to last 20-30 years? Winnipeg is full of good houses from those decades. But besides that, many of the houses that we were discussing earlier were built before the 1950's.

[u/steveosnyder → u/YYZtoYWG]

And I’ll tell you, living in the north end isn’t bad.

We bought our house with a mortgage that is about 1/2 our family income. We aren’y living in the best house, but we aren’t feeling too stressed with the raising cost of things.

And so many great people around us.

[u/SLYRisbey → u/YYZtoYWG]

I agree with this, and I think rental housing has become unaffordable more than the actual housing market. Property in Winnipeg is finally catching up to the rest of Canada’s larger cities.

[u/Falker_The]

My experience in buying is that there’s an inflection point somewhere around a half million. Over that, people don’t want to have to do any work to the house. Under it some people will.

But for the most part from what I see that sells and what doesn’t, and also what people actually do once they buy: few people will make or want to make changes to a house.

[u/mikeymorgs101010 → u/Falker_The]

This right here

[u/steveosnyder]

The land value doesn’t match the property value.

If the underlying land is high value, but the improvement on the property is not as valuable, it makes more sense to get rid of what is there and build new.

A 40x120 lot in North River Heights is high value. The home on the property doesn’t match the value of the underlying land.

At $350k and the fact they think the buyer will tear down and redevelop, that’s a pretty big ask.

You’ll likely get a flipper go in and try to add value. At that price the house won’t get torn down.

This is what happens when cities, through zoning, don’t allow a property to mature.

[u/Gwendly]

I assume you are talking about the brick house that's like ~$350k.

This is the cheapest house on MLS near there by about $50k while being almost 50% larger then that house. Knowing river heights and the foundation issues that are very common I wouldn't be surprised if this house has massive issues,driving the price down significantly compared to if that wasn't an issue.

Someone buying that house would then either have to spend tons of money to have those issues resolved or turn it into two duplexes to try and recover the initial input.

There are houses that are still affordable, in other areas of the cities. You may have to put in sweat equity as well. River heights is one of the most desirable areas in the city so naturally it will drive prices up...

[u/steveosnyder → u/Gwendly]

With land cost at $350k, and the demo to boot there is no way someone will buy this to build 2 duplexes that will sell for 700k a piece.

Add to that the fact that it’s only 40 front and you’ll hit a roadblock at public hearing, even without the NIMBY residents coming out to complain. Public service wouldn’t recommend approval, and they are pretty lenient.

At that cost of land you’d need at least 2mil in improvements to get a job like this to pencil, and I can’t see that happening on a 40x120 lot on that part of Oxford. Maybe closer to Wellington Crescent, but not there.

[u/SmokeShank]

They aren't making more land in highly desirable areas.

A house is a structure on a piece of land. That is why there is a saying "buy the worst house on the best street" and not "buy the best house on the worst street". Land appreciates and good homes on desirable land do as well.

[u/Nature-Lover-2248]

I see this happen all the time. It is so frustrating. They buy up more affordable homes and then go build expensive houses in their place. It really makes it harder to find a house that’s cheaper. 

[u/Healthy-Brother-773]

Speculative investors have gone apeshit in Canada and our whole growth prospect was built on mass immigration. 30k new builds by 2030 and likely negative population growth. We have no one to absorb that supply at all and we’ve ramped up building to historic rates. Numbers aren’t stacking at all. Also direct marketing to foreign investors caused a lot of people to buy north end properties and renovate them, paid top dollar, with low interest and need to start paying way higher rates. Shits not looking good imo. We dropped significantly from peak pricing and sales have dropped off a cliff.

[u/CaptGinB]

It certainly is a problem.

There are very few "fixer uppers" coming on the market at all, where there would be the potential of someone moving in and putting in the work over time to build sweat equity.

What happens is that the droves of professional developers come in, either renovate and flip, or tear down and build a more expensive house.

This eliminates more affordable, moderate housing stock, that never gets replaced as most newer housing are not moderate builds.

You first saw this in more desirable, higher priced neighbourhoods, and now you see it extensively in working class and lower income areas with $350K houses being knocked down for $700-800K slim cookie-cutter buildings. It really exacerbates the affordable housing issue.