If you’re looking to stay close to downtown, consider our top three picks this year: Crescentwood (1B), Norwood Flats (2B) and Lord Roberts (1Aw). But, believe it or not, these three neighbourhoods aren’t the cheapest. All three had average single-family home housing prices that were above the average home price of Winnipeg’s core, which was just below $221,175. But good value isn’t the same as cheap price.

“There is such a massive demand to get into the older, established neighbourhoods that are located closer to downtown,” says Mary Pidlaski, a realtor with Re/Max Executives Realty. “These are the communities that boast the old, turn-of-the-century architecture, whose streets are heavily treed and where families can park the car and walk to everything on the weekends.”

1. Crescentwood

In our No. 1 pick, Crescentwood, buyers can expect to find homes in the $271,600 price range. While this is much higher than the core’s average housing price, this area is in high demand. As a result, prices have risen 10% in the last year and 16% in the last five years.

PHOTOS: Top 10 Greater Winnipeg neighbourhoods to buy in

One big draw is the older character homes and the community feel. This neighbourhood boasts one of the largest Canada Day celebrations in Winnipeg, with thousands gathering in Osborne Village, which is a part of Crescentwood, to celebrate. Even when it’s not a celebration, people from across the city like to visit this neighbourhood, in part, because it boasts the city’s Little Italy community with excellent gelati parlours and wonderful Italian restaurants. There’s another reason why families want to establish roots in this area: the schools. Schools in this area have a solid reputation and this prompts big interest in buyers with kids. Even those that don’t manage to find a home in Crescentwood will try to secure a spot in the neighbourhood’s schools and then commute to the schools on a daily basis.

2. Norwood Flats

For the second year in a row, Norwood Flats ranked in Winnipeg’s top 25 neighbourhoods for both value and momentum. However, this year, it claimed the No. 2 spot in our ranking, up 15 spots from 2017.

“This is one of those neighbourhoods where buyers really want to get into and will often wait and wait and wait until they can,” explains Pidlaski. Part of the big draw are the older 1910s and 1920s character homes. The other part is the quick and easy access the neighbourhood offers to the Red River. “Families that live along the river will often enjoy boating or kayaking in the summer months and then build massive toboggan hills in the winter that land right on the shores of the river,” says Pidlaski.

Catherine Schellenberg, realtor with Re/Max Professionals, says that buyers love the fact that the area is nestled within the bow of the Red River and that it’s so close to the city’s French Quarter walking distance to downtown. This makes the neighbourhood a trendy spot, which means homes listed here sell very quickly.

As a result of this sustained demand, prices in this neighbourhood are higher than the city’s core average of $221,700. To get in during last year’s market, buyers paid, on average, just below $284,000 — and the community experienced a one-year price increase of 9% and a five-year price increase of 15%. As a result of demand and what this community offers, Norwood Flats got top marks for value, but slightly less than a perfect score for momentum.

The biggest problem, says Pidlaski, is a serious lack of supply. In 2017, homes in Winnipeg sat on the market for an average of 27 days, but in Norwood Flats that was almost cut in half with homes being snapped up, on average, after 15 days.

3. Lord Roberts

Located between Norwood Flats and Crescentwood is our No. 3 pick, the community of Lord Roberts. This community was the least expensive in our top three, with the average price for single-family home reaching just over $235,585 in 2017. While price appreciation in this neighbourhood has been strong in the last five years, at 19%, it’s three-year and one-year growth prompted a bit of a momentum drag for this community, at 8% and 5%, respectively.

One big draw for this area is that it borders the west side of Osborne Street, a popular commercial street in the city of Winnipeg, and shares a tiny corner of its neighbourhood border with the Red River. As an older, residential neighbourhood, most of the homes in this neighbourhood date to the pre-World War I era. This means that buyers can quite often purchase a character home — one of the most sought-after housing purchases in Winnipeg — for slightly more than the core’s average housing price. The only real drawback is that sometimes this community becomes congested with commuter traffic. As residents in more southern neighbourhoods leave the city’s downtown core, the major streets in the Lord Roberts area can get busy. But given the community’s easy access to Osborne Village, Red River Park and the lower price point, this is an ideal community for anyone looking to set down roots in Winnipeg’s core.

Top 25 neighbourhoods

These are our picks for the best neighbourhoods to buy real estate in Winnipeg’s core, but if you’d rather live farther from the hustle and bustle of downtown, we have more suggestions. We ranked the best neighbourhoods in three regions — core, inner suburbs and outer. The core is the city’s urban centre, with accessible transit and easy access to amenities. The inner suburbs are for people who don’t mind trading a longer commute for better parking and a bigger lot size. And the outer region is for buyers who either don’t need to commute downtown at all, or are willing to log some serious travel time in exchange for affordable prices and wide open spaces. Check out the map below to see how the regions break down.

Regions map