{"id":27971,"date":"2026-07-02T11:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T18:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/?p=27971"},"modified":"2026-07-02T09:07:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:07:44","slug":"number-of-completed-unsold-condos-could-reach-5000-by-2023-in-metro-vancouver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/07\/number-of-completed-unsold-condos-could-reach-5000-by-2023-in-metro-vancouver\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Completed, Unsold Condos Could Reach 5000 by 2023 in Metro Vancouver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thousands of new condos are not being absorbed by the market, raising questions about supply-demand mismatch and income inequality.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), there were 4,376 completed and unabsorbed condo apartments in the Vancouver census metropolitan area (CMA) in May 2026, compared to 2,488 in May 2025\u2014an increase of 76%.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CMHC economist Shiva Moshtari Doust said \u201cabsorbed\u201d dwellings are those that are completed but unavailable for sale or lease. This includes units that are occupied, subject to a binding, non-conditional agreement, or withheld from the market by developers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Under any other circumstances, the unit is considered \u201cunabsorbed.\u201d For example, a unit is unabsorbed if the unit is switched from sale to rental, or if a presale didn\u2019t complete and the structure is finished.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe\u2019re looking at record-high numbers of unabsorbed units in the Vancouver CMA,\u201d Moshtari Doust said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The massive increase is corroborated by a separate data set from Rennie and data platform Zonda Home.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There were 2,179 completed and unsold homes at the end of 2024, 3,472 at the end of 2025 and 3,945 at the end of Q1 2026, according to Rennie\u2019s estimates based on Zonda&#8217;s data.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The data analyzed by Rennie has some technical and geographical differences compared to the CMHC data.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Like CMHC\u2019s approach, a unit is unabsorbed if a presale buyer fails to complete their purchase. Unlike CMHC, however, a unit is unabsorbed if it is held back by a developer waiting for better market conditions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThat is a home that is not occupied that could in theory be occupied, even if it\u2019s not available for purchase right now,\u201d said Ryan Berlin, Rennie\u2019s chief economist and vice-president of intelligence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Moreover, Rennie doesn\u2019t count a unit as unabsorbed when a developer switches it from sale to rental, though Berlin said he hasn\u2019t seen this occur at scale yet in this market apart from some small instances.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Berlin\u2019s data covers a slightly larger geography that includes Squamish, Abbotsford and Mission, where in total there are about 100 completed and unsold condos, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CMHC\u2019s Moshtari Doust said a few years ago, there was a surge of housing starts that are now completing. Meanwhile, there is slow population growth, low buyer confidence, lower rents siphoning would-be buyers, and higher interest rates making financing more expensive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cSupply is high and demand is low,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Rennie\u2019s Berlin said if recent trends continue, the number could grow to 5,000 by 2030.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cSome would look at that and say that\u2019s a pessimistic scenario. It\u2019s certainly not a doomsday scenario, but I think it does reflect the reality that we have thousands of unsold homes in buildings that are under construction and that will be delivered at some point in the next four years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cHow much of that sells between now and when these buildings complete?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cTake-out buyers\u201d are another variable, Berlin said. This is when a fund or developer purchases unsold inventory in bulk, pulls it off the market or puts it into rental.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe\u2019re starting to see a little bit of that in Toronto. If that happens here, because it hasn\u2019t yet, then you could see these headline numbers change dramatically, and specifically reduce,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University&#8217;s City Program, said the housing market hasn\u2019t seen unabsorbed numbers this high since the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It\u2019s geographically uneven, he said, with Burnaby and Richmond accounting for almost half of the region\u2019s unabsorbed apartment stock, reflecting where construction and presales were concentrated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The surplus suggests the market is not delivering the affordable housing many Vancouverites desire.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt\u2019s housing for whom?\u201d Yan said. \u201cWhile we are able to build certain types of units, there is a question of, who can afford it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Most households in the region don\u2019t have very high incomes, highlighting what some say is a need for the right kind of supply, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is a stalemate in terms of developers\u2019 prices versus the capacity of prospective home purchasers struggling with affordability, access to financing and job stability, Yan said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWhen you hear from developers, you hear from some of the politicians, they talk about the housing crisis and they talk about the supply problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis is one [story] that isn\u2019t only about supply but it\u2019s also, who gets to consume it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biv.com\/news\/real-estate\/unabsorbed-condos-at-record-levels-in-metro-vancouver-cmhc-12440153\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CMHC : Unabsorbed Condos at Record Levels in Metro Vancouver<\/a> by Jami Makan | BIV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of new condos are not being absorbed by the market, raising questions about supply-demand mismatch and income inequality. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), there were &hellip; [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/07\/number-of-completed-unsold-condos-could-reach-5000-by-2023-in-metro-vancouver\/\">read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,27,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-updates","category-pre-sale-projects","category-real-estate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Number of Completed, Unsold Condos Could Reach 5000 by 2023 in Metro Vancouver &#8226; Rory C Real Estate | Oakwyn Realty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/07\/number-of-completed-unsold-condos-could-reach-5000-by-2023-in-metro-vancouver\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Number of Completed, Unsold Condos Could Reach 5000 by 2023 in Metro Vancouver &#8226; Rory C Real Estate | Oakwyn Realty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Thousands of new condos are not being absorbed by the market, raising questions about supply-demand mismatch and income inequality. 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