With the need for more housing plain in Canada, and condos being such a big part of the equation, there’s no minimizing the fact that the condo sector, set against the backdrop of a changed and challenged market, has gripped Canadians with an eye on real estate this year.condos) in Canada’s most major markets have seen a dramatic fall from grace over this past year.
By contrast, he estimates that the region’s pre-sale condo market is on track to have its slowest year in almost 30 years, with less than 5,000 sales expected by year-end. That figure pales in comparison to the 10-year average of around 22,000 sales. “To say this is shaping up to be a slow year for the new condo market is an understatement,” he adds.
“If you look at the scheduled completions for ‘24, ‘25, and ‘26, you can see they'll probably be the highest on record. But then after that, it just starts to fall off a cliff,” Menkes said at the time. “This is not something where you can flick a switch and all of a sudden we have deliveries. We know that if we're not starting anything in ‘25, there going to be no deliveries in ‘28.”
“Another one of the metrics that we track, specifically outside of sales, is project launch volume, so new supply coming onto the market. And in the Greater Vancouver area, there's going to be about 120 projects that are going to come to market this year, when the long-run average is about 150 or 160 projects,” he adds. “So different metric, but similar takeaway in the sense that we are 25% to 35%, call it, below what our typical levels of activity have been.
It wasn't just the gains change that had investors condo-shy this year. Stewart points to the lead-up to the provincial election, which came down to an extremely close win by the NDPs over the Conservatives, and the heightened uncertainty surrounding that prompted many investors to pump the breaks.
That’s all to say that 2025 is not on track to be some magical, rebound year for the new Canadian condo or its stakeholders, even with interest rates down to 3.25% and poised to come down further. There is expected to be improvement in the year ahead — to varying degrees, depending on where you look and who you ask — but it will mainly be in terms of sentiment rather than actual activity.