Winnipeg Home Price Index Update - MAY 2026: Data From APRIL 2026
Prices are high, but the supply has arrived! How long will the market last?
May 2026 HPI Update
By: Keenan Brown
Read & Subscribe here: https://winnipegmarketwatch.substack.com/
March 2026 Winnipeg Benchmark Price: $469,900 (was $463,800 last month)
Year to date: +7.16%
Month over month: +1.32%
From 2025 all-time high: +4.00%
Another all-time high! Imagining the benchmark price at nearly 470k would have seemed patently absurd only 5 years ago, yet here we are: nearly 50% up from the beginning of the pandemic.
Even with the impressive >7% gain on the year so far, the sky-high prices aren’t the center of discussion in most real estate circle, but rather the nature of the supply picture we’ve seen so far.
It’s no secret we began the year with only a small handful of homes available to purchase, but April really changed that narrative. We just saw nearly 4x more homes get listed in April than we had in March, and for once, not all of them got instantly bought!
So what should you do if you’re still shopping? How about if you’ve still got a property to sell? Let’s discuss!
Broader Context: What happened in April?
April was a frustrating month for both buyers and sellers in Winnipeg.
There was no shortage of buyers losing bidding wars with incredibly solid offers to someone really pushing the limits.
And at the same time, there were plenty of properties with a lot of sellers caught disappointed with little or no activity on their offer date!
Call it luck, call it skill, or call it strategy, I think I’m just gonna call it “Spring.” Let’s face it, you can’t predict irrational outcomes, and April had plenty of those. There’s plenty of areas setting record high sale prices on one house, while less than 5 mins away you’ll find someone getting no offers on a house priced similarly.
The market feels polarized and more inefficient than it has in a while, and as we move into May there will certainly be great opportunities for savvy buyers and strategic sellers to take advantage of the volatility.
The Bank of Canada: Next announcement June 10th
I correctly predicted the Bank of Canada’s lack of action on the April 29th meeting, but so did virtually everyone else in the world.
There isn’t another BoC meeting now until June, leaving us to push through the rest of our Spring market without any explicit intervention.
It’s still extraordinarily likely that the BoC will hold rates on June 10th. There isn’t any particularly urgent reason for rates to be cut, and increasing them would be a risky decision for reasons far beyond the scope of real estate.
I’ll admit, I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see a .25% rate increase come up in late 2026, but I still think the odds of that are lower than the odds of a full year of no changes.
Give me a call or send me a DM if you want to discuss your personal mortgage situation.
Country: How do we compare?
I’ve added several more major cities for reference! Winnipeg is highlighted on the chart for improved legibility.
Winnipeg, Halifax and Regina are all dominating the country in HPI terms. Long term owners of property in these locales have experienced pricing gains by percentage in excess of every other major metro area nationwide.
The bigger markets remain depressed, but slowly there are signs of improvement beginning to show. Both the GTA and GVA experienced an HPI gain last month, with Toronto specifically stringing together 3 straight moths of pricing gains. They’re still nowhere near where they once were, but it appears for now, things are looking better than they have been recently.
Accountability Check: How are my predictions doing?
On December 18th 2025, I predicted the April 2026 Benchmark price would be $461,000.
We’re sitting at $469,900 right now, which once again, is a pretty reasonably close estimation to reality. I still think I got lucky with the significant move upwards we saw in the Dec 2025 data, but the unless we see a really substantial move upward from here (which is still reasonably possible), the trajectory of my prediction appears to be have been mostly accurate for the Spring so far.
I did predict we’d love a good chunk of the gains were seeing this Spring as we head into the Winter, and I am also very curious to see what the market seems to price in as we enter the warmer months of the year.
Advice for Buyers and Sellers in Today’s Market
For Buyers:
Shop hard, and look for listings that missed offers! The best homes at the most attractive prices are still selling for very aspirational prices, but there’s plenty of supply out there available to purchase today that is often quite good!
Take every showing opportunity you can. You never know when an option on your short list might get stuck with a quiet offer night, and you’ll want to be the first to act when you find out.
For Sellers:
Prices are sky-high, but you need to be more strategic and carefully planned in May than any prior month in 2026.
You MUST stand out among the listings in your same price category. With supply as high as it’s gotten, you simply can’t expect 50+ showings on virtue of hitting the market at an attractive price.
There are situations where listing low is still incredibly wise, but in this kind of market, an “offers as recieved” strategy can actually yield huge success with the “first one in the door” effect.
If you’re on the fence about what you should be doing with your property, give me a call or send me a DM. Everyone’s situation is different, but there’s a solution for every problem. And I’d be happy to help!
📞 204-955-0173
📧 keenanbrownrealtor@gmail.com
📱 @keenanb_ on Instagram
SUPPLY PICTURE:
March:
April:
Average sales price remained steady, as did the supply ratios, but the sheer number of new listings has been a lot for the market to digest.
The number of sales that occurred in April is considerably lower than we saw last year, and even with nearly 10% fewer homes listed from last year, the month to month story is of more relevance to the current situation.
The numbers aren’t out of line with the historical averages. In fact, the large supply jump from March to April has happened every year for the past 4 years.
But for those of you actively seeking property or looking to make a selling decision, it’s important to know just how much the selling landscape has changed from 6 weeks ago.
Absorption Data:
The seller-favored market is going to continue for the foreseeable future, but the cut into April wasn’t as wild as I had initially thought it might be.
I’m keeping my eye on this, but I’ll be surprised if it goes anywhere but seller-favored.
BIDDING WARS - OVER OR UNDER
More than 60% of detached homes are selling at or above asking price as of this past month. The market widely expects agents to price property in a manner to expedite such a strategy, but a very substantial 8.37% of homes are selling for precisely asking.
This more than anything signals there’s beginning to have some consensus forming around what makes a price “fair.”
Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot of property priced in a manner to attract more modest bidding wars rather than the 25+ offer chaos nights of Jan-March.
We’re almost exactly at the same ratio as last year, which I considered to be a very healthy April and May. This is keeping me optimistic for another great early Summer for Winnipeg real estate.
I’d expect the bidding war strategy to remain the go-to citywide for at least the next few months.
SALES BY AREA REPORT
ANALYSIS
Here’s some of the hottest neighborhoods so far this year. Due to popular request, only areas with 90%+ absorption will be listed until further notice.
Due to low levels of sales data, only areas with AT LEAST 5 SALES will be included on the short list:
1F - Southboine - 100%
3F - North Kildonan - 100%
4K - Tyndall Park West - 118%
5E - Saint James - 90%
This is one of the shortest lists in history of this publication, and I believe it is due almost entirely to the shocking leap in supply we experienced month of month.
Plenty of popular areas are sitting in healthy 80%+ ranges, but we’re still early in the year and the data still contains plenty of error at this stage.
Here’s a short list of neighborhoods I’m keeping a close eye on right now:
5A- West End- 46%
I am actually surprised at how poorly 5A is doing in a market that has seemed so tight in every other price point. With sub 50% absorption and an average sale price below 200k again, it seems like this is one of the only areas in Winnipeg to be moving backwards. I have several listings in here, and I totally understand the nature of the area, but I actually expected it to be better in a market hard pressed for affordable options.
1S - Richmond West - 79%
This neighborhood has become my second home, and this month I watched it go from 110% absorption to 79% in a flash. Supply arrived, and Richmond West was hurting for it a little too badly! The pricing got a little bit wild, but now time will only tell if the buyers are still willing to play ball.
5H - Crestview - 76%
With active buyers in this area and listing coming soon, I’ve been simultaneously surprised at how hard it’s been to buy, the high sales prices, and then the relatively low absorption! Crestview has somewhat frequently been an area near the top of the hotlist, and I would expect it to return there relatively soon, but with the supply surge it appeared to take a bit of a step back. The nearly 460k average sale is crazy though!
Takeaway:
Here are the key points from today’s market update:
The Benchmark Price rose 1.32% month over month to $469,900 - another new all time high!
Supply came and the market shifted! Nearly 4x more homes were listed in April than March, but the level of uptake remain pretty high.
Strategy and preparation is more important now than it’s been in all of 2026. The unprepared fail in these kind of markets!
