WinnipegREALTORS® Press Release, April 8, 2013

WINNIPEG - Will someone turn the pilot light back on and warm up our MLS® market?  You have to go back to the old Winnipeg Jets era when the likes of Teemu Selanne and Thomas Steen were entertaining fans at the Winnipeg Arena to find the last March where sales were lower than March 2013. It just so happened to be the 1994-1995 NHL lockout season where only 48 games were played. Sound familiar! And lack of scoring or conversions of listings to sales clearly hurt sales activity in March. To use another sports analogy, many buyers decided to sit on the sidelines and not venture out onto the field of play.

Listings were not the issue as new ones coming on the market were down less than 7% while the active inventory at the end of March remains up 4% over the same time last year. A collective buyer pause seemed to engulf the local real estate market. If it helps restore some supply-demand balance to what has been one of the tightest resale...