Discussions

Why is nothing being done about the lack of affordable housing in Brandon? Why do these big housing companies keep building places no one can afford??  
Why is no one talking about how a big housing corporation in Brandon bought the hillside townhouses and faded out the coop housing that was being offered there?!  
Is no one else frustrated with the housing here? Or am I the only one that can’t afford to pay thousands a month in rent.  
I’m a hard working single mom that works as well as attends university, we live in an apartment the size of a box, with no yard for my kids to play in. Paying 1400$ a month. I can not get into Manitoba housing because everyone knows they are more keen to help people who arent working and going to school. How @$$ backwards is that! At this point it’s cheaper for us to live in Winnipeg.

Well "big housing corporations" wouldn't be building them if they weren't selling so I'm thinking maybe you just can't afford them. And what exactly is affordable housing??! Affordable by who? However I do understand your frustration and feel for you. Can be tough especially for a single Mom going to school and what not. Maybe look outside of Brandon, you might be able to find something that you can afford.

I too, feel your frusation , with the availability of affordable housing in Brandon, it stinks big time. It not only affects single parents/ students, minimum wage workers, and seniors, but all low income people, which I surmise would be probly half the population of the city, ( guessing).  
It's getting to the decision of food on the table or a roof over the head.  
Sad.  
 
Edited by Peoplewatcher, 2019-04-07 19:26:27

I have advertised my whole house with yard for $1150 plus utilities.

In that rental range of payment you should qualify for about a $250,000 mortgage. Land has become a premium in the city. If you want cheap you will have to look at outlining bedroom communities. On the Realtor site there are 50 homes in Brandon for 200-250 grand. That is affordable. Another dozen in surrounding areas. New housing costs have ballooned huge over the past few years.

Housing is a perennial issue. Although with Fishing Guy suggesting she qualify for a mortgage, that's not realistic either if she's a student. You need a down payment, and you need money for maintainence, etc. That $1400 would likely be her total housing costs... once you subtract $200 for utilities, $200 for property tax and $200 for a slush fund for maintainence and emergency fund (if that fridge breaks, you are the one replacing it!!), that brings her down to only $800 for mortgage. That might buy her a $180,000 property, once she coughs up the $10K in down payment and costs.  
 
But what house is $180K? In Brandon, you *might* find a condo, but most likely a trailer. Then you likely can't amortize it for 25 years, but might be limited to 10 or 15. That just dropped you down to the $130K-ish range.  
 
It's easy for us homeowners to look at a rental price and say, "oh, you should get a mortgage, you pay more than my mortgage!", that may very well to true, but the cost to rent i:ncludes many other expenses that you would cover out of pocket as a homeowner.  
 
Winnipeg ->: Not necessarily better off. We recently decided against relocating there because we found housing is so much more expensive there than here. Yeah, you can buy or rent for less than Brandon, but those are pretty dodgy areas (and Brandon-dodgy isn't the same as Winnipeg-dodgy....). To get decent housing, you're looking at probably 20% more vs. Brandon if I had to guess.  
 
Hopefully things will start to look up for you once you finish school. Good on you for getting an education and I wish you good luck!!

With the op. With the ridiculous pricing for rentals, no one can make ends meet. People that own old dilapidated houses that have been paid off for 30 years, charge 1400 bucks a month for nothing. No yards, no air conditioning, a lot of them without fire exits. (Yes, I have a friend who lives in one). Then the big developers are buying out the older homes, tearing them down, then putting up a “condo” in 2 weeks and charging 180,000. The younger generation or new families don’t stand a chance of ever being able to afford to get ahead.

If you don't count the maritime provinces, Manitoba is actually quite cheap when it comes to both renting and buying. With respect to Brandon, it is on the high end of Manitoba for both because it is the second biggest center. Yeah it suck compared to what it was ten years ago but so does everywhere.  
 
https://globalnews.ca/news/4194216/provinces-cities-canada-highest-lowest-rent/  
 
https://globalnews.ca/news/4194216/provinces-cities-canada-highest-lowest-rent/  
 
This probably does not make you feel any better but it is the reality.

Everyone seems to have the expectation that they should have a large place to live with a huge yard. We talk about carbon footprint and look at housing in Europe where I see a lot of row housing with very little yard area. I have lived most my life in an apartment. That is part of life. Now the OP is going to university. I am sure after that the wage will go up and they can afford to upgrade. Living in Alberta back in the day rent was around the 700 mark for a 3 bedroom at 5 bucks an hour. Now it is double with triple the wage. How did we make it work back then? No yard, go to the local park. Don't like where you live, go to school to make more money to upgrade. I have never gotten something nice for next to nothing. There has been low income housing built and nobody bought it so they stopped doing it. My area was to be low income housing with so called trailers on your own lot. I jumped on the no lot rent. It took years to fill the bay. 1200sqft homes with a 50x110 lot for around the 100-150 thousand mark brand new. Trailer trash was the conception. Then they tried smaller homes around the 800-900 sqft as they were affordable too. To tiny the complaints. Built it and they bitch about it. Never a win situation.

with the statement:  
 
[i]The home builders are just trying to give you what you want. If you've done any construction at all you'd know that they can't build these houses for less than they are building them for.[/i]  
 
So true!