Winnipeg Construction

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by esquire

In my personal experience from the circles that I travel in, the majority of Winnipeggers who a) get excited about the thought of living downtown and b) actually do it tend to be the under-30 crowd. Even then it's a small minority of the whole, many (if not most) of whom take the first opportunity to buy a home in the 'burbs, quite often in the same area that they grew up in themselves.

So you're really talking about a niche market, but it is a niche market that exists and clearly there is a response to this demand which we're seeing in the form of new high-rise condo projects and apartments like Heritage Landing. Obviously the fact that there is only a small handful of them going up as opposed to the reams of suburban homes that are built each year tells you how limited the market is, but there are clearly enough people with enough faith in downtown to pony up for a condo or an apartment, otherwise these buildings wouldn't be proposed or built in the first place.

Frankly, I doubt that middle-aged boomer suburbanites factor into the assumptions behind new downtown residences at all, except possibly as non-resident investors. There is no chance that the Riverman and rrskylar types of the world would ever be persuaded to give up their plot of suburbia. But that's OK, because they are not the market for those projects.

Good post esquire, bang on. Although I wouldn't be against down town living but just not in Winnipeg, sorry.