Demand for housing all around the Pembina Valley has seen a dramatic increase, and Morden is one community experiencing a high growth rate this year.

"In Morden over the last few years, it rose between two and four percent a year," says Cheryl Digby, Community Development Officer for the City of Morden. "I would suspect that this year we are closer to the four percent because we've seen a lot of growth."

She says some of the growth is coming from families expanding, but a large portion of it is due to high immigration numbers to the area, and the pipeline.

"We've had a lot of construction and there still continues to be a lot of constraints when it comes to housing. It's been very tight. The pipeline being here for the last few months has increased that pressure on the housing market, but it's certainly not adequate enough to fulfill the need that's coming in."

The city is hoping to keep expanding housing throughout Morden, as opposed to keeping it all in one area of the city.

Digby says, "thankfully we've seen some developers that have been stepping up, and we've seen some new construction of townhouses, condos, rental apartments, but having said that we're going to need more in the future."

As well, a number of new businesses are popping up and current ones are expanding, which is bringing significant immigration to the region. Many of these people are also participating in Morden's Community Driven Immigration Initiative (MCDII).

Either way, Digby says that it is a seller's market at this point in time.

"Because we've got this chronic shortage of housing in Morden and various types of housing shortages, we've budgeted for next year to do a housing strategy. To start with, just determining what the needs are and in what sector or category, and then from there that will help developers be a lot more informed. We can guess at what we think the needs are, but this will give us more precise data to work with."