Manitoba’s housing situation is in a state of flux at the moment, as it is in most of the Canadian provinces. In the past two decades, homeowners have enjoyed rising prices for their homes which, conversely, has made homes less affordable for the buyers of those residences. Still, Manitoba ranks as one of the more affordable provinces in which to own a home.
Also, in the past two or three decades, there have been many apartments converted to condominiums and many new condominiums complexes constructed. These units do not grow in value, generally, as rapidly as do freehold, single family dwellings.
There currently is a significant shortage of affordable housing. To address this, the federal government (mostly through Canada Mortgage and Housing) has provided funds to the provinces and builders or groups within those provinces to build affordable housing units. The demand has outstripped the supply increase.
Rental units are in short supply, particularly in the city of Winnipeg.
Housing in Manitoba, and Canada in general, is of a very high quality due to strict enforcement of building code regulations, yet there is a gap in quality of First nations on-reserve housing, where inspections and quality control is not sufficient.
Heating costs are higher than in eastern, coastal or southern regions of the continent, due to the extreme cold weather we experience in winter.
Our provincial Hydroelectric utility has been very good at keeping electric rates very affordable and even ships very large amounts of electricity out-of-province.
Our city water supplies also are of very high quality and many rural communities have installed good water and sewage systems for their towns.
Because our province is not an old province and because our single-family buildings largely are constructed of wood, we have very little very old houses.
The majority of single-family homes have basements. While this provides more living space, it also exposes those residences to cancer-causing radon gas from the soil, unless preventive measures are properly installed.
The ideal housing cost-to-income level is 3:10, but many families spend up to 40% of their income on housing.