In its second quarter report, the Bank of Canada indicated it may hold off on increasing its key interest rate again from the current five per cent. This is due to evidence indicating the economy is cooling and there has also been a cooling in Canada’s housing market and prices. This cooling continued in the third quarter. While a rate hike has not been conclusively ruled out, it does not appear there will be any further increases in the prime lending rate this year. However, do not expect rate cuts any time soon.
 

Did you know?

Many of our members do not realize that they are CCI members and hence are missing out on some of their membership benefits. While they do receive this quarterly newsletter and perhaps an occasional email from us, they may not realize why. This may be because many of our members fall into one of two of our group-membership categories - Condo Corporations and Business Partners. When a Condo Corporation becomes a CCI member, all unit owners become members as well, entitling them to this quarterly newsletter and other member benefits as described in another article. Similarly, when a company or business, such as a property management firm or a law firm, becomes a CCI member, all of their staff become members as well. To access our CCI members-only area of our website, just click on the Members Only menu item and login (If you don’t know your username and password, email our administrator). In this members-only area you can find resources such as our newsletter archive and recordings of past education sessions. Note that the login credentials change annually and are sent to the primary contact for the membership upon renewal.
 

With our fiscal year end of June 30th followed by our AGM in September, the summer edition of our newsletter is the time to publish the year-end reports from our Committee. At CCI Manitoba, most of the detailed work is done at the Committee level, the Board setting the direction and making the decisions for proposals brought forward.

We are continuing to receive suggestions to improve the Provincial condo act (The Act) https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/2011/c03011e.php and the associated regulations https://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/regs/current/164-2014.php?lang=en and we thank you wholeheartedly for your efforts.

Hello Again!

As we come to the end of another year for the Canadian Condominium Institute – Manitoba Chapter, it’s time to reflect on our accomplishments and disappointments and also on what we can look forward to in the coming year. While it certainly has been an interesting and eventful year, it was not without its share of ups and downs.

A View & A Voice

This article discusses two topics - the underused housing tax and noise pollution, along with general Q&A with our members.

We are seeing another year impacted by rising mortgage rates and in July the Bank of Canada increased the overnight rate for the 10th time since March 2022. At that time, rates were rock bottom at 0.25% but now they sit at 5%, the highest they have been in 22 years. Despite the rising interest rates, condominium activity in the local market is weathering the rapid rate hikes surprisingly well, based on June market results.

2023-2024 Education and Event Program Schedule

For up-to-date information about in-person and online events, please use https://cci-manitoba.ca/education-events/upcoming-course-events. Note that as the effects of the pandemic are fading, we are resuming in-person events and hope to include a live streaming option in the future.

With the reappearance in the City of Winnipeg Council Chamber of some condo related issues, we started to receive some letters to the editor from our members. If you would like to send in your own letter for possible publication in our newsletter, you can do so by sending it to us a cci.mb.news@gmail.com with a subject of “Letters to the Editor”.

List of Individual Members of CCI Manitoba

List of Condo Corporation Members of CCI Manitoba

For the first time we have had two consecutive sales years in which the condo market activity within the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board (WRREB) market region exceeded the 2,000 unit threshold.  It should not be all that surprising that we are unlikely to see a  repeat performance in 2023, given the interest rate environment we are in. Consider the effect of the eight Bank of Canada interest rate increases in 2022, followed by another one this year, resulting in the overnight lending rate of 4.5%. Other factors have contributed to the sentiment that we are unlikely to repeat the performance of the past two years. 

A View & A Voice

The conversation seems to be muted lately with no new submissions since the prior edition of the Condominium News and Views.  That said, two items from the prior edition, Mandatory Director Training and Benchmarking Data have updates. For the prior article https://cci-manitoba.ca/cci-manitoba-magazine/article/95.