dailynewsnblog
There is another sign of the slumping condo market in Metro Vancouver: the number of pre-construction sales has crashed.
Matt Scalena, the co-host of the Vancouver Real Estate Podcast, said sales are historically low.
“Builders can’t build for a price that matches the resale market, so there’s this disconnect between pre-sale and resale, a price differential, and people just aren’t interested in buying pre-sale right now,” he said.
Developers are now either waiting or walking away, with a project in Richmond being a prime example of that.
It is still just a hole in the ground and hundreds of buyers are now waiting to get their deposits back.
Get breaking National news
Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.
In the first quarter of 2021, nearly 6,000 pre-construction units were sold across B.C.
In the first quarter of this year, there have been just 124.
“The pre-sale market has always been very reliant on the investor, and I think that given the outlook for the market, which is falling prices, falling rents, no population growth, there’s not a whole lot of incentive for investors to step up,” Steve Saretsky, a realtor with the Saretsky Group, said.
Buyers can now find better deals in the resale market, leaving new projects struggling to get off the ground.
A similar situation is happening in other cities across Canada.
In Ontario, the situation may be even worse, with tens of thousands of unsold units.
On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Ontario and Ottawa would spend billions to help cut municipal housing development charges in half for three years to spur new construction.
B.C. Housing Minister Christine Boyle says she’s meeting with the federal housing minister this week and says B.C. should be treated as well as Ontario.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
