The Reiss Report - Spring 2025 - CCI Manitoba Chapter

Article from Volume 13, Issue Number 2, 2025

The Reiss Report - Spring 2025

By Alan Reiss | Other articles by Alan Reiss | Regular Column

Optimism for condo buyers and sellers

While the first quarter does not make or break a year in real estate, given how much more sales activity transpires in the second quarter, it does give an indication of how buyers and sellers are feeling about the year ahead and 2025 is no different — buyers and sellers are feeling positive despite all of the tariff-related angst.

Setting up this year well are two consecutive Bank of Canada overnight lending rate cuts of 25 basis points, one in January and one in March. This lowers the Bank of Canada overnight lending rate to 2.75 per cent. It has come down a full 150 basis points since October 2024, thus making the Winnipeg regional condominium market one of the most affordable in the country.

Here’s a brief recap of the first quarter of 2025:

January saw a 12 per cent increase in sales from the same month a year earlier. What was apparent from a drop in average sales price of 10 per cent from January 2024 was a probable upsurge in first-time buyers seeking more-affordable condo units (e.g., 37 per cent of units sold for $125,000 to $199,999 and 100 square feet less than average). Thirty-seven per cent of condo listings were sold in January.

February condominium sales of 156 were up 19 per cent, with an average price of $274,036. That was a two per cent increase over last February and nine per cent ahead of the January 2025 average price of $249,793. Close to one in two active condo listings sold in February.

Owing to a shortage of listings and strong market fundamentals, March saw the condo average price hold firm at slightly above March 2024 at $277,068. It was six per cent above the five-year average.

Sales were up six per cent to 199. Based on these sales, this leaves less than two months’ worth of supply available for April. What was telling in March was sales going for above list price are as high as they were at the peak month in 2024 at 27 per cent of total sales.

For comparison’s sake, March’s high-water mark is six per cent higher than that of March 2024 and significantly better than that of January 2025, when it was less than 13 per cent, and February 2025, when it was 19 per cent. In percentage terms, at-list-price condo sales have been cut almost in half since January.

A final point to highlight in March is the fact that condominiums' biggest competitor, the dominant MLS® best-selling, single-family property, has experienced a major spike in its average sales price. As a result, a larger gap has opened between it and condominiums. The average selling price for single-family homes in March was nearly $200,000 greater than that of condominiums at $470,399. In March 2024, the difference between the two MLS® property types was $145,215.

This development reinforces the opportunity condominiums offer first-time buyers wanting to get a foothold in the market and downsizers seeking more money in their pocket for retirement than if they were to stay put or move laterally in price terms to an upscale condo or another home such as a bungalow. Rising municipal and school taxes this year are another incentive to think condominiums are an affordable living option.

More evidence of a tight condominium market in 2025 was the March conversion rate — 56 per cent of active or existing listings sold, with current listings remaining well under two months’ worth of supply. If few new listings were to come onto the market, conditions will be ripe for sellers to take advantage this spring.

Year-to-date summary

As for the first quarter 2025, condominium sales of 465 are up 12 per cent over last year, with the average sales price just under $270,000, which is within one per cent of last year’s average, which itself was 10 per cent above the prior five-year average. It would have eclipsed the 2024 first quarter average if not for the low average sales price in January. In the first three months of the year, 63 per cent of the 741 listings were sold, with average days to sell of only 25 days.

New listings are up 5 per cent but more are needed in the second quarter to help mitigate the shortage of listings. First-quarter dollar volume of more than $125 million was up 10 per cent from 2024 and five per cent from the five-year-average of just over $120 million.

One Winnipeg standout in the first quarter was Richmond West, with 18 of its 19 listings selling in an average time of 17 days. In rural Manitoba, Morden-Winkler performed exceptionally well, with all 24 listings entered on the market this year selling and one other as a carryover from 2024.

Onward and upward, as the second quarter will see more sales activity and potentially higher prices given the increase in the percentage of above-list-price sales in the first quarter.

Alan Reiss has been a professional member of CCI Manitoba for 15 years. He’s a gold sponsor of CCI Manitoba and has been one of its directors since 2020. Alan is a very active director of CCI Manitoba, serving on six of its committees. He is also a REALTOR® and condo specialist with RE/MAX PROFESSIONALS.

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