Vancouver Presale Market Updates

The Bank of Canada Held Rates Again. Here Is Why That Does Not Help Your 2028 Presale Completion

On September 2 the Bank of Canada held its overnight rate at 2.25 per cent. The Bank Rate stayed at 2.5 per cent, the deposit rate at 2.20 per cent, and the policy rate has now been unchanged since October 2025, when it came down from 2.50 per cent.

The commentary around the decision has been what you would expect. Mortgage brokers pointed out that discounted fixed rates are still available below 4 per cent. Industry associations called the hold a signal of stability. The standard advice arrived on cue: get a rate hold, lock in today’s pricing for up to 120 days, protect yourself from volatility.

That advice is fine if you are buying a resale condo in Kitsilano and closing in six weeks. If you are buying a Metro Vancouver presale that completes in 2028 or 2029, almost none of it applies to you, and I think the gap between the two situations is the single most underexplained thing in this market right now.

The rate hold everybody is discussing is one you cannot actually use

A rate hold is a lender’s commitment to honour a quoted rate for a fixed window, usually up to 120 days. Four months. That is the entire product.

Your presale completion is not in four months. It might be in thirty-six. When you sign a presale contract, you are agreeing to buy at a fixed price on a date the developer will confirm later, and you will arrange your mortgage close to that date, at whatever rates exist then. No lender will commit to a rate three years out, because no lender can price that risk.

So the September 2 hold tells you something about today’s borrowing environment. It tells you very little about the one you will actually borrow in. Presale buyers who feel reassured by a rate hold headline are reading a forecast that does not extend to their horizon.

What the decision does tell you is worth reading carefully. The Bank noted that the continuing conflict in the Middle East is keeping energy prices elevated, and that new U.S. tariffs and Canadian counter-measures followed the breakdown of trade talks. Headline CPI is running at 3.0 per cent. Unemployment edged down to 6.4 per cent in July, but the Bank still sees continued excess supply in the economy.

That is a central bank pinned between two risks it cannot resolve at once. Ratehub’s Jamie David framed it as the Bank having “little room to move aggressively in either direction.” Two decisions remain this year, on October 28 and December 9. Anyone telling you confidently what happens after that is guessing.

What actually determines the rate you complete at

Three things, and the policy rate is only loosely connected to the first.

Fixed mortgage rates track government bond yields, not the overnight rate. That is why fixed pricing can move in a week the Bank does nothing. As of the September decision, the lowest discounted five-year fixed was around 4.09 per cent, with two-year fixed near 3.89 per cent and three-year near 3.94 per cent. Where those sit in 2028 depends on where bond yields go, and bond yields will respond to the trade conflict and to energy prices as much as to anything the Bank announces.

Variable rates do follow the policy rate, through prime, which most major banks are holding at 4.45 per cent. The lowest discounted five-year variable was around 3.35 per cent at the September decision.

Your own qualifying position is the third piece, and it is the one you can control. Lenders qualify you at a rate above your contract rate under the federal stress test, and they re-underwrite you at completion, not at signing. Your income, your other debts, your credit and your down payment all get looked at again, years after you signed. I have seen more presale completions get difficult because a buyer’s income situation changed than because rates moved.

The question to ask instead

Not “where will rates be.” Nobody knows. The better question is: at what rate does this purchase stop working for me?

Take the purchase price, subtract your deposit, and run the payment at 5 per cent, at 6 per cent, at 7 per cent. If the number at 6 per cent makes you uncomfortable, you have learned something concrete and useful about the size of unit you should be shopping for. That exercise takes ten minutes and it is worth more than any forecast.

Then do the same for the deposit schedule. Most Metro Vancouver presales run 15 to 20 per cent staged over 6 to 18 months, though a number of projects are currently offering 10 per cent structures. Those instalments come due on contract dates regardless of what the Bank of Canada does.

If you want the mechanics of how completion, financing and contract dates fit together, the pages of a 200-page presale contract that actually matter covers the clauses involved, and presale versus completed new construction is the honest comparison if the financing timeline is what is bothering you. A completed home you can finance today sidesteps this entire problem.

Market Signals

The sale. On August 26 the Harvard Apartments at 1240 St. George Avenue in North Vancouver’s Central Lonsdale sold for $12,250,000, or $382,813 per unit at a 4.0 per cent cap rate, according to vancouvermarket.ca. It is a 32-suite, three-storey wood-frame walk-up built in 1970, on an 18,077 square foot corner lot directly across from Lions Gate Hospital, zoned RM-1 for medium-density apartment residential use. Cushman Wakefield listed and sold it.

A 4.0 per cent cap rate on 1970 wood-frame stock is aggressive. For comparison, the Twin Lakes townhome portfolio traded three weeks earlier at 4.7 per cent. I am not going to attach a storey count or an FSR to this site: RM-1 is what is on the record today, and the City of North Vancouver has an active planning process reimagining the Central Lonsdale corridor, so the density that will eventually govern sites like this is still being written. What the price tells you is that patient capital is buying the land under old rental buildings on the North Shore, and that is usually two to three cycles ahead of any presale launch.

Builder watch. Closer to home for presale buyers, Portwood Development 3 Limited Partnership and Portwood Development 4 Limited Partnership obtained CCAA protection on August 14, 2026 on application by affiliates of Woodbourne Canada Management Inc., which were owed roughly $125 million as of August 17. The debtors own Phases 3, 4 and 5 of Woodland Park, a five-phase Port Moody residential project originally assembled in 2018 for about $97.5 million. Phase 3 is roughly 3.28 acres at 1218 Cecile Drive with permits for about 158,000 square feet of multi-family rental. Phases 4 and 5 total about 13.65 acres, rezoned for residential, with 96 townhomes on them. PwC is the monitor, and it is asking the court to approve a sale process backed by a stalking horse bid.

Two details are instructive. First, the phases are legally interdependent: under the development agreement with the City of Port Moody, Phase 3 has to be materially advanced before much of Phases 4 and 5 can be occupied. A master-planned community is not five independent projects, and trouble in one phase can stall the ones you bought into. Second, the petitioners deliberately chose CCAA over receivership partly because receivership over the title nominee could have triggered purchaser rescission rights under B.C. real estate legislation. Even the lenders are now structuring around presale buyer protections. That is a real shift.

What this means for buyers

Stop treating the Bank of Canada calendar as your buying signal. Two decisions are left this year and neither will change the arithmetic of a 2028 completion.

Do this instead. Stress-test your own purchase at 6 and 7 per cent before you sign, not the rate you are quoted today. Map the deposit instalment dates onto your actual cash flow. Ask the developer’s sales team directly what happens to your completion date if the project slips, and read what the contract says rather than what you are told. Look at who is financing the project and how many phases the plan depends on, because Port Moody is a live reminder that phasing risk is real. And if the financing uncertainty is genuinely what is keeping you up, seriously consider completed inventory, where you can finance today at a rate you can actually see.

The buyers who do well in this market are not the ones who timed the Bank of Canada. They are the ones who bought something they could still afford if they were wrong about rates.

Considering a Metro Vancouver presale?

I track 481 developments across 14 cities, 265 of them selling right now, and I will run the completion math with you before you sign anything. If you want an honest read on a specific project, including its phasing and who is behind the financing, book a call or register for VIP presale access. No pitch, just the spreadsheet.

Up to $50,000 in GST Relief Now Turns on One Date, and Most Assignments Are on the Wrong Side of It

There is a new federal GST rebate for first-time home buyers on new homes, worth up to $50,000. It is real, it is now law, and most presale assignments on the market today cannot use it.

The reason is a single date, and it is not the date most people think it is. If you are selling an assignment, this has quietly shrunk your buyer pool. If you are buying one, it can be a $37,000 difference on the same unit.

What the rebate actually is

The first-time home buyers’ GST/HST rebate came in through Bill C-4, which received royal assent on 13 March 2026. For a qualifying first-time buyer using the home as their primary residence, it rebates:

• 100% of the GST on a new home priced up to $1 million.
• A reducing amount between $1 million and $1.5 million, tapering to nothing at the top of that band.
• Up to $50,000 in total.

On a $900,000 new home that is $45,000 that simply does not have to be paid. It is the largest single change to new-home affordability for first-time buyers in years.

The date that decides it

The rebate is available where the agreement of purchase and sale with the builder was entered into on or after 20 March 2025, and before 2031.

Be careful here, because there are two dates in circulation. The original proposal announced in May 2025 used 27 May 2025. The legislation as enacted moved it earlier, to agreements entered into after 19 March 2025. A great deal of commentary published during 2025 still quotes the May date and still ranks well in search. If you are checking your own eligibility against an article, check when the article was written.

Why assignments are caught

This is the part that matters for anyone trading assignments, and it follows from how an assignment actually works.

When you take an assignment you do not sign a new agreement with the builder. You step into the original buyer’s existing agreement and complete on its terms. That agreement, with its original date, is the one the rebate looks at.

So the contract date travels with the unit. If the first buyer signed with the developer in 2023 or 2024, the agreement predates the cutoff, and an assignee completing in 2026 is buying into a contract that cannot access the rebate. It does not matter that the assignee is a first-time buyer, that it is their principal residence, or that the price is well under $1 million. They meet every personal test and still get nothing.

There is also an anti-avoidance rule, so the obvious workaround does not work either. You cannot tear up a pre-cutoff agreement and sign a fresh one with the builder in order to qualify.

The same unit, two contract dates

Take the Burnaby one-bedroom I use in the presale assignment guide: a $749,900 contract with $149,980 in deposits. GST on the developer’s price is 5%, which is $37,495.

Same suite, same buyer, same price. The only difference is when someone else signed a contract years earlier.

If you are selling an assignment

Your competition is the developer’s remaining inventory, and that inventory is now signed under post-cutoff contracts. A first-time buyer comparing your 2023-contract assignment against a similar new release is comparing a unit with GST payable against one where the GST may come back.

That is a real gap on a sub-$1 million unit, and it lands on exactly the buyer segment most likely to be looking at an entry-level presale. Price accordingly, and do not be surprised when a first-time buyer walks.

If you are buying an assignment

Ask for the date on the original contract of purchase and sale before you negotiate, not after. It is a one-line question and it can move your true cost by tens of thousands of dollars.

If the contract predates 20 March 2025 and you are a first-time buyer, price the lost rebate into your offer, or look at the builder’s own remaining stock instead. Assignments have real advantages, including sold-out buildings and shorter waits to completion, but on this specific point a new contract from the developer can be worth materially more to you.

What to confirm, and with whom

I am a licensed real estate advisor, not an accountant, and this is general information about how the rule works rather than advice about your situation. The rebate has personal eligibility tests, including the definition of a first-time buyer and the primary residence requirement, and the treatment of any particular assignment turns on the wording of the contract in front of you.

Confirm your own position with a qualified accountant, and check the current parameters directly with the Canada Revenue Agency. The 20 March 2025 date and the effective date of the legislation are confirmed by the Canadian Home Builders’ Association.

If you are weighing an assignment either way and want the contract date checked before you commit, send it to me. It takes a minute to look at and it is the cheapest question you will ask in the whole transaction.

Verified August 2026. Tax rules change, sometimes mid-year. Nothing here is tax advice.

A $48 Million North Vancouver Deal Just Told Presale Buyers Something About 2029 Supply

There is a kind of real estate transaction that never makes the evening news but tells you more about where the market is heading than any forecast. One of those closed on the North Shore last week.

On August 7, Vancouver Market reported that Twin Lakes Estates, a 57-unit rental townhouse community at 3701 to 3817 Princess Avenue in North Vancouver, traded for $48,000,000. That works out to $842,105 per unit at a 4.7 per cent cap rate. The buyer was identified as Manulife Financial. The seller was a joint venture between KingSett Capital and Starlight Investments, which had paid $52,500,000 for the same property in April 2022 and then spent more than $1.5 million renovating it.

Read that again. A large institutional owner spent four years and over a million dollars in upgrades, and still sold for less than it paid. And another large institution was happy to buy. If you are shopping Metro Vancouver presale condos right now, this deal is worth understanding, because the people who fund new housing are quietly telling you what they think of building it.

The site is 9.44 acres holding just 57 homes

Here is the detail that jumped out at me. Twin Lakes sits on 9.44 acres of RM-5 zoned land, per the sale writeup and the JLL listing. The improvements are seven two-storey wood-frame buildings from 1971, with 117 surface parking stalls, roughly half of them carports.

Fifty-seven homes on 9.44 acres is about six units per acre. In a region where the District of North Vancouver has been directed to plan for 22,369 new housing units between 2021 and 2041, and where council approved its updated Official Community Plan in December to meet the province’s deadline, a nine-acre low-density parcel is exactly the kind of land you would expect a developer to chase.

A quick caution, because I would rather be useful than dramatic: I have not found a filed application, a redevelopment proposal, or any stated intention to redevelop this site, and I am not going to invent an FSR or a storey count for you. What I can say is what the numbers show. The land is large, it is close-in on the North Shore, the buildings are 55 years old, and the site is dramatically underbuilt relative to its acreage. The buyer chose to pay a premium for it as income property rather than as a development play. At $842,105 per unit, Twin Lakes traded far above the roughly $465,000 per unit average that Vancouver Market cites for North Vancouver apartment buildings, and the writeup attributes that premium to the low-density format, the acreage, and an unusually stable family tenant base.

Why a big investor bought old instead of building new

This is the part that matters for presale buyers.

An institution with $48 million to deploy in Metro Vancouver housing has two basic choices. It can buy a standing building with tenants already paying rent, or it can fund new construction and wait three to five years for the first dollar of income. Right now, option one produces a reliable 4.7 per cent yield on day one. Option two means construction cost risk, financing risk, absorption risk, and the very real possibility that the finished product is worth less than it cost to build.

When capital consistently picks door number one, new supply does not get built. That is not a prediction. It is arithmetic, and it is showing up across the region. Metro Vancouver has seen a steady run of development sites and partly built projects moving through court-supervised processes over the past two years, and the pattern has been the same each time: the land is worth less as a development site than someone paid for it.

What the July numbers say about the buying window

The resale market is soft, and softness there flows directly into presale pricing power.

Greater Vancouver REALTORS reported 2,061 residential sales in Metro Vancouver in July 2026, down 9.8 per cent from July 2025 and 18.6 per cent below the ten-year seasonal average. Apartments took the hardest hit, with 952 sales, down 17.8 per cent year over year. The benchmark apartment price is $688,000, down 7.5 per cent from a year ago and down one per cent from June. The composite benchmark across all property types sits at $1,088,800.

The sales-to-active-listings ratio for apartments came in at 14 per cent. GVR’s own guidance is that prices face downward pressure below 12 per cent and upward pressure above 20 per cent. Fourteen is the middle of the road, which is roughly what you would expect from a market where nobody is panicking in either direction.

Meanwhile the Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 per cent on July 15, its sixth consecutive hold. For a buyer, that means the financing environment is stable and knowable, which is more than could be said for most of the last four years.

So we have a buyer’s market on price, a stable rate environment, and a supply pipeline that institutional money is stepping back from. Those three things do not usually happen at once.

Market signals

The sale. Twin Lakes Estates, 3701 to 3817 Princess Avenue, North Vancouver. Sold for $48,000,000, or $842,105 per unit, at a 4.7 per cent cap rate. 57 units across 75,120 SF on 9.44 acres of RM-5 land, built 1971. Vendor was a KingSett Capital and Starlight Investments joint venture that acquired it in April 2022 for $52,500,000. Purchaser identified as Manulife Financial. Listed and sold by JLL, reported by Vancouver Market on August 7, 2026. The site’s build potential is unstated in any application I could find, so treat the redevelopment angle as an observation about acreage and age, not a plan.

Builder watch. I checked the Canadian insolvency filings for the past week and found no new BC real estate developer or builder filing in that window. The most recent BC development receiverships on the public record are earlier this year. A receiver was appointed on March 30, 2026 over the entities behind Chroma at 1888 Scotia Street in Vancouver, on a facility of roughly $76.4 million. And the BC Supreme Court granted a receivership order on April 27, 2026 over entities tied to the 5083 Joyce Street rental project, where the lender was owed about $109.2 million. Worth noting for buyers: both are rental buildings, so no presale deposits were caught up in either. Neither involves any finding of wrongdoing. They matter because they show how much financing stress sits behind projects that look finished from the sidewalk. Your deposit protection is only as good as the developer’s balance sheet and the trust arrangement holding your money.

What this means for buyers

If you are considering Vancouver presales, Burnaby presales, or a North Vancouver presale over the next year, three things follow from all of this.

First, ask about the money before you ask about the finishes. Who is the developer, what have they completed, who is the lender, and is your deposit held in a lawyer’s or notary’s trust account under the Real Estate Development Marketing Act. A good salesperson will answer all four without flinching.

Second, understand that today’s soft pricing is a function of weak demand, not abundant future supply. Institutional capital is not funding the 2029 and 2030 pipeline the way it funded the 2019 pipeline. When demand returns, the inventory that would normally absorb it may simply not exist.

Third, use your leverage now. Developers launching into a market with a 14 per cent apartment sales-to-active ratio are negotiating on deposit structure, on assignment rights, and on incentives in a way they were not doing three years ago. That window is open. It has not been open often.

I wrote in June about why this stretch of 2026 looked like an unusually good window for presale buyers, and last week about how thin the Metro Vancouver pipeline is getting. The July data and this North Shore sale have not changed that view. If anything they have sharpened it.

The bottom line

A pension-scale investor just paid a premium for a 55-year-old townhouse complex on nine acres rather than build something new, and took the seller’s loss as their gain. That is a market telling you that building is hard right now and owning is easy. Presale buyers are on the other side of that trade: you are buying the thing that is hard to build, at a moment when few people want it.

If you want to see which Metro Vancouver presale projects are actually launching, what the deposit structures look like, and which developers have the balance sheet to finish, register for VIP presale access. I will send you the ones worth your time and skip the rest.

Toronto Just Got $2.7 Billion for Rentals. Metro Vancouver’s Presale Pipeline Is Heading the Other Way

Yesterday, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mayor Olivia Chow announced that Ottawa and the City of Toronto are putting more than $2.7 billion behind 18 rental housing projects, over 5,600 rental homes in total, with construction starting on more than 4,500 of them before the end of this year. If you follow national housing headlines, you have seen the number by now.

I wrote about British Columbia’s own federal housing deal in June, so I am not going to walk through that package again. What is worth your time is the comparison. The two deals are built on opposite premises, and a CMHC forecast published on July 28 has since made the consequence of that difference much clearer for anyone shopping Metro Vancouver presale condos.

The short version: Toronto’s money buys buildings. British Columbia’s money buys cheaper inputs. And CMHC now expects our condo pipeline to keep thinning through 2028, while demand recovers.

What Toronto’s $2.7 billion actually buys

The Toronto package runs through two channels. On the non-market side, Build Canada Homes is contributing more than $310 million toward nine projects on City-owned land, producing close to 1,900 rental homes, with the City matching through nominal-value land, more than $530 million in capital and incentives, and property tax exemptions running as long as 99 years. On the market side, CMHC’s Apartment Construction Loan Program is providing more than $1.8 billion in low-cost financing for nine more projects, expected to deliver over 3,700 rental homes. Ottawa reserved up to $600 million more for other Toronto projects as they become construction-ready.

That is a supply push aimed at specific buildings, on a defined timeline, in one city. Shovels this year.

BC’s deal was designed to lower costs, not to break ground

Our June package was structured differently: more than $5 billion over ten years for local infrastructure, development-charge relief of up to 50 per cent (roughly $40,000 per unit), a one-time $284 million transfer, $2.5 billion for transit including the Surrey–Langley SkyTrain extension, and a partnership to convert more than 2,200 vacant condo units into affordable housing. All of it is real and useful. None of it puts a condo on the market next year.

There is also a tax gap worth knowing about, and I would rather you hear it from me than discover it at completion. Ottawa has eliminated GST on new homes up to $1 million for first-time buyers, worth up to $50,000. That applies here in BC. But Ontario is also removing the full 13 per cent HST on new homes, worth up to $130,000, and a separate Canada–Ontario agreement directed $1.5 billion to Toronto to cut residential development charges by 40 to 60 per cent. So a first-time buyer in Toronto and a first-time buyer in Vancouver are not getting the same deal on a new home right now. When you see a national headline about new-home tax relief, do not assume all of it lands in your budget.

The July CMHC forecast is the number that should get your attention

CMHC’s Summer Housing Market Update, published July 28, says 2026 has been weaker than the agency expected, that prices should keep adjusting downward through the year, and, this is the part that matters, that historically low levels of construction will be most visible in Ontario and British Columbia, particularly in the condominium market.

The Greater Vancouver numbers are specific. Housing starts totalled 28,112 in 2024 and 27,185 in 2025, with 2026 projected between 26,000 and 27,000. Then they fall: between 21,900 and 25,100 in 2027, and between 20,500 and 22,000 in 2028. Resale volume is projected to bottom out this year between 28,000 and 28,800 sales, then recover to between 29,800 and 32,200 in 2027. Greater Toronto is forecast to trend the opposite way on both measures.

Sit with the timing. Demand recovers from 2027. Starts keep falling through 2028. A project that breaks ground in 2028 does not complete until roughly 2031 or 2032. That is a genuinely thin window on the far side of a market that feels soft today.

You can already watch it happen, project by project

This is not an abstraction. OpenForm Properties had approval for a 40-storey tower at 7211 Greenford Avenue in Burnaby; it has since redesigned the project, reduced the height, and shifted it to rental. That is one more building that will not be a presale. In July, Ottawa committed $174.6 million through the Apartment Construction Loan Program to The Editions at 3588 Wesbrook Mall, 349 rental homes with UBC Properties Trust, completing mid-2028. Also rental.

Meanwhile Vancouver council green-lit Holborn’s downtown supertall, which would bring roughly 1,900 homes and 920 hotel suites. Approvals are still happening. But notice the pattern in what is actually getting financed and started: rental, rental, rental. CMHC named the condominium market as the place the thinning shows up, and the project-level news keeps confirming it.

Market Signals

Developer financial strength is not a theoretical concern. Two Toronto projects were recently placed under court protection: The Manderley at 1478–1496 Kingston Road, a completed 194-unit building by Nova Ridge Development Partners with 70 units still unsold, went into receivership, and the Vic Towns townhouse project with 65 unsold units was placed under creditor protection. Neither is a BC project, and I did not find a comparable BC filing this week. But the mechanism travels: a builder carrying unsold finished inventory through a slow market is carrying real financing risk, and that risk is highest for the developers who priced most aggressively on the way up.

In British Columbia, presale deposits are required to be held in trust under the Real Estate Development Marketing Act. That is meaningful protection, and it is one of the reasons I am comfortable putting clients into presales at all. It is also only as good as the paperwork, so read the disclosure statement, and confirm in writing who is holding your money and where.

What this means if you are buying a presale

If you are waiting for a better entry point, be clear with yourself about what you are waiting for. Prices may soften further this year; CMHC expects exactly that. But the supply that would keep them soft into the 2030s is being forecast down, not up, and the federal money flowing into BC is aimed at making future building cheaper rather than delivering condos sooner. Those two facts do not resolve in the patient buyer’s favour forever.

Practically, three things. First, with the Bank of Canada holding at 2.25 per cent in July, financing conditions are stable enough to plan around. You are not trying to time a moving target. Second, your leverage right now is in completed and near-completion inventory, because that is where a developer has carrying costs and you have a unit you can actually walk through; negotiate hard there. Third, on genuine presales, weight developer track record and balance sheet far more heavily than you would have in 2021, ask directly about construction financing status, and confirm deposit protection before you sign.

And keep an eye on the Surrey–Langley SkyTrain corridor. Federal transit money is committed, and stations reshape a neighbourhood’s pipeline years before the first train runs.

Let’s talk before the window narrows

The gap between what the headlines say and what the forecasts say is where good buying decisions get made. If you want a straight read on a specific building, neighbourhood, or developer, or first access to Metro Vancouver presale condos before they reach the public market, register for VIP presale access. I will tell you honestly when a project is worth your deposit and when it is not.

Sources: STOREYS (Aug 5 and July 28, 2026), Prime Minister of Canada news release (June 18, 2026), CMHC news release (July 21, 2026) and CMHC Summer Housing Market Update. Photo: Kyle Ryan via Unsplash.

I Said Zoned Isn’t Built. Vancouver Just Proved It, the Hard Way

Back in July, before the public hearing, I wrote an explainer on the Villages Plan for anyone who did not know a rezoning from a hole in the ground. The core of it was one idea: a zoning map changing overnight is not the same as buildings going up, and you should never pay today for a neighbourhood that exists only on a planning document.

On July 28, Vancouver City Council killed the Villages Plan. The vote was 10 to 1.

I want to walk through what happened, why it happened, and the part that actually matters for you: what changes on those 13,000 lots now that the plan is dead.

What council actually did

The plan would have rezoned about 13,000 lots across 17 areas to allow low rise and mid rise housing up to four and six storeys, eight near rapid transit, plus roughly a million square feet of new ground floor retail. It went to a public hearing spread over three dates, July 14, 20, and 22. Around 300 people registered to speak, the large majority against, and council received close to 3,000 letters and emails.

ABC councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who voted no, called it a “tsunami” of opposition. She was careful to say the idea was good, but that the consultation and execution fell short of what residents deserved. The only councillor to vote yes was OneCity’s Lucy Maloney, who tried to salvage it by sending it back for deeper consultation or piloting it in five villages first. Both amendments were voted down. She left calling the two year process a messy waste of taxpayer money.

So the plan that Mayor Ken Sim himself set in motion in 2023 was rejected by his own council, three months before a civic election.

Here is the honest part

If I wanted to take a cheap victory lap, I would tell you I called this. I sort of did, and I sort of did not, and the difference matters.

My argument was about feasibility and time. I said a lot of these lots would never pencil out at today’s costs and rates, so the map would change fast and the skyline slowly. That is still true, but it is not what killed the plan. The Villages Plan did not die of economics. It died of politics. Green councillor and mayoral candidate Pete Fry, who voted against it, said plainly that coming this close to an election it was doomed, and that the staff work was wasted. This was a political failure mode, not a financial one.

But here is why I am not walking anything back. Both failure modes point at the exact same lesson, and it is the lesson the whole explainer was built around. The distance between “the city is proposing this” and “this is actually getting built near you” is enormous, and that gap can open up two different ways. It can open slowly, through economics, when projects do not pencil. Or it can open all at once, through politics, when the plan gets voted down before a single permit is issued. This time it was the second one, and it happened faster and more decisively than the feasibility version ever would have.

If you had bought a presale in 2025 on the story that “this whole area is about to become a walkable village,” you would have paid for a future that, as of last week, is not coming. That is the point. Not that I predicted the specific cause of death, but that treating a planning proposal as a done deal is how people lose money, every single time, regardless of which way the deal falls apart.

What actually changes now

This is the part most of the coverage will skip, so read this closely if you own or are shopping near one of the 17 nodes.

The temptation is to think the rejection resets everything to how it was. It does not. Two things are still true the morning after.

First, the housing math that created the plan has not gone anywhere. Council rejecting a proposal does not add a single home or lower a single price. The pressure that produced the Villages Plan is still sitting there, which means some version of this fight comes back, probably after the October election, possibly in a form that looks quite different.

Second, and more concretely, the provincial rules still apply. British Columbia’s transit oriented area legislation and the existing multiplex permissions in Vancouver were never part of the Villages Plan and did not die with it. If your lot is near rapid transit, or already qualifies for a multiplex under current zoning, that potential is unchanged, though exactly what your specific lot allows is worth checking rather than assuming. The Villages Plan was mostly about adding an apartment and mixed use layer on top of the commercial corners. Killing it removes that layer. It does not roll the city back to single family only.

So the accurate read is narrow, not sweeping. What is off the table is the six storey apartment and ground floor retail upside on those specific village corners. What remains is everything the province already mandates and everything the city already allowed. For a homeowner hoping to sell to an apartment assembler, the near term premium just evaporated. For a buyer who was nervous about a six storey building landing next door, that specific risk is gone, for now. For everyone, the “this area is about to transform” story is dead until further notice.

The takeaway has not changed

I will say the same thing I said in July, and last week just underlined it in red.

Do not buy real estate on the strength of a plan. Plans are proposals, and proposals get killed, sometimes by their own author’s council, sometimes three months before an election, sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the buildings made sense. A zoning map is a statement of what someone hopes might be allowed. It is not a guarantee, not a timeline, and not a floor under your purchase price.

Buy the actual home, in the actual market that exists on your completion date, at a price that makes sense even if nothing around it ever changes. If the neighbourhood transforms later, treat it as a bonus. If you would only buy because of what a plan promised, last week is your reminder of exactly what those promises are worth.

Presale vs. Completed New Construction in Vancouver

Most buyers think the choice is new versus used. There is a third option sitting between them that almost nobody shops properly: a brand-new home that is already built, standing, and available to walk through today.

Both are new construction. Both come with warranty. But buying a floorplan and buying a finished unit are genuinely different transactions, with different risk, timing, tax treatment and warranty position, and critically a completely different amount of room to negotiate. Here is the honest comparison.

The three things you might be looking at

• Presale (pre-construction). The building does not exist. You buy from floorplans, renderings and a disclosure statement, pay a staged deposit, and complete in roughly two to four years.
• Under construction. The building is going up. Sometimes you can see the actual floor, occasionally the actual unit. Completion is months away, not years.
• Completed new construction, often called standing inventory or move-in ready. The building is finished and registered, the unit has never been lived in, and you can walk through the exact home you are buying and take possession in weeks.

That third category exists because developers rarely sell out at launch. Whatever has not sold by the time the building completes becomes finished inventory the developer is now carrying, and carrying costs money.

What you can actually see

This is the obvious difference, and it is bigger than buyers expect. On a presale you are buying a drawing. You are trusting the renderings, the ceiling height on paper, and your ability to read a floorplan. On a completed unit you stand in the room. You see the real light at four in the afternoon in November, the real view rather than an artist’s interpretation from a drone height nobody lives at, the real hallway noise, the real finish quality, and the actual neighbours’ balconies.

A meaningful number of presale buyers are disappointed at orientation not because the builder did anything wrong, but because a 720 square foot two-bedroom reads very differently in person than on paper. With finished inventory that risk is zero.

Certainty of timing

Presale completion dates move. Delays of several months are normal, and your contract will reference an estimated completion date and a much later outside date. If you have a lease ending, a sale closing, or children changing schools, that uncertainty is a real cost. A completed home closes on a date you can plan around, usually within 30 to 60 days.

The warranty clock, the difference nobody checks

Every new home in BC carries mandatory 2-5-10 warranty insurance: two years on labour and materials, five years on the building envelope, ten years on structure. But the clock starts when the first owner takes possession, not when you buy.

• Buy a presale and you are the first owner, so you get the full clock, unstarted.
• Buy a completed unit the developer still owns and has never conveyed, and you are typically still the first owner, so the clock still starts for you at possession.
• Buy a finished unit that already conveyed once, such as an unlived-in unit being resold or an assignment that completed, and you inherit only the remainder. A building that completed in 2023 has already spent its entire two-year labour and materials coverage and three years of its envelope and structural coverage.

All three are “brand new.” Only some come with a full warranty runway. Always ask when the building completed and whether title has ever transferred.

Deposits, financing and price direction

Presale spreads 15% to 20% over the construction period, which is easier on cash flow but locks that capital up for years with no return and no ability to use the home. A completed purchase works like a normal transaction: a deposit, then the balance at closing, typically financed. Your money is tied up for weeks, not years.

Financing differs just as much. On a presale you are qualifying for a mortgage you cannot actually secure for years, and rates, lending rules and your own income can all change before completion. Buyers do get caught. On a completed home you get a real rate hold and a real approval on a real appraisable property, right now.

Presale is also a bet that prices rise during construction. When they do, you win. When they do not, you are still committed to a price set years earlier, and buyers who bought at the top of a cycle have completed into units appraising below their contract price, creating a financing gap they have to cover in cash. With completed inventory you are buying at today’s price, with today’s information and today’s appraisal.

Rescission rights and tax

The seven-day REDMA rescission period applies to development marketing. Depending on how a finished unit is being sold, your cooling-off rights may differ, because a home sold under a standard resale contract instead falls under the shorter Home Buyer Rescission Period. Confirm which regime applies before you sign.

On tax, both are new homes, so 5% GST applies, and the first-time buyer GST rebate and BC’s newly built home PTT exemption may be available. Eligibility depends on contract dates, price thresholds and whether the home has been previously occupied, so this is one to confirm on the specific unit rather than assume.

Where the negotiating room actually is

Here is the part most buyers do not understand, and it is the strongest argument for looking at finished inventory.

At a presale launch, the price is the price. Developers hold firm on headline pricing because discounting early units reprices the entire building and undermines the sales program. What you get instead are structured incentives: a decorating allowance, a deposit structure, a parking stall, capped assignment fees. Real value, but the number on the contract rarely moves.

Completed, unsold inventory is a different conversation entirely. Once a building is finished, every unsold unit is costing the developer money through financing on the construction loan, property taxes, strata fees, insurance, marketing and staffing. Lenders want the project closed out. Sales teams have quarter-end and year-end targets. A unit that has been standing for six months is a line item somebody wants gone. That pressure creates leverage that simply does not exist at launch, on price, on closing timing, on upgrades and appliance packages, and on parking and storage.

This is where experience earns its keep. Having worked through twenty presale launches with six developers since 2014, I know which builders are carrying standing inventory, roughly how long it has been sitting, what has already traded in the building, and where each sales team’s pressure points are. That is not information published in a brochure. On finished inventory, knowing what a unit has actually been trading for and when a developer is motivated is frequently worth thousands of dollars on the contract price. If you are considering a completed new home, talk to me before you walk into the presentation centre, because once you are registered with the developer’s sales team your negotiating position is weaker.

Which one suits you

Presale tends to suit buyers with a long runway and no housing deadline, investors comfortable with construction and market risk, buyers who want first pick of the building and the ability to select finishes, and anyone who wants a full unstarted warranty clock and the maximum window for prices to move in their favour.

Completed new construction tends to suit buyers who need certainty, buyers who want to see exactly what they are getting, anyone with a firm move-in date, buyers who want a real mortgage approval today, and buyers who would rather negotiate than accept a fixed launch price.

Neither is universally better. The honest answer is that most buyers only ever get shown one of them, usually whichever the agent in front of them is selling.

Frequently asked questions

Is a completed new home still covered by the 2-5-10 warranty?

Yes, but check when the clock started. Coverage begins when the first owner takes possession, so a unit that already conveyed carries only the remainder of each period.

Can you negotiate on presale?

Rarely on headline price, more often on incentives such as deposit structure, decorating allowances, parking, storage and assignment terms. Finished inventory is where price itself becomes negotiable.

Why would a developer still have unsold units after completion?

Very few projects sell out at launch. Leftover units are normal, and carrying them costs the developer money every month, which is exactly why they are more negotiable.

Do I pay GST on a completed new home?

New homes are subject to 5% GST. Rebate eligibility depends on price, contract date and whether the home has been previously occupied, so confirm on the specific unit.

Is move-in ready the same as brand new?

Usually, but not always. Ask two questions: has anyone ever taken possession, and when did the building complete? Both answers affect your warranty position.

This is part of our Complete Guide to Buying a Presale in BC, and it pairs with our guide to the 2-5-10 new home warranty, which is the difference most buyers overlook. If you want to compare active presales against completed inventory properly, I track both across Greater Vancouver, at no cost to you as a buyer. Book a consultation.

Read next

• The 2-5-10 New Home Warranty, Explained
• Presale vs. Resale in Vancouver
• Presale Deposits in BC

The 2-5-10 New Home Warranty in BC, Explained

Every new home built in British Columbia must come with third-party warranty insurance. It is not optional, it is not a builder’s goodwill gesture, and it is not something you negotiate for. Under the Homeowner Protection Act, a residential builder must be licensed and the home must be covered by warranty insurance from an approved provider before it can be sold. Buyers hear it called “2-5-10” and nod along. Very few know what the three numbers actually protect.

Here is what each number covers, what it does not, when the clock starts, and why the start date matters enormously if you are choosing between a presale and a finished home.

What the three numbers mean

The name is shorthand for three separate coverage periods that run at the same time, from the same start date, but protect different things.

2 years: labour and materials

The shortest and broadest layer. It covers defects in the workmanship and materials of the home, the things that go wrong first. In practice it is tiered:

• 12 months on defects in labour and materials for a detached home, and for the non-common property of your strata unit, essentially inside your own four walls.
• 15 months on defects in labour and materials for the common property of a strata building: lobbies, corridors, amenity rooms, parkade.
• 24 months on defects in labour and materials relating to the electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, in every building type.

So “2 years” is really “up to 2 years, depending on what broke.” A faulty outlet or a failing HVAC unit gets the full two years. A poorly hung cabinet door gets twelve months. This is why your deficiency list at orientation matters so much: the shortest coverage window is the one covering the largest number of small, visible items.

5 years: the building envelope

The envelope is the building’s skin: the exterior walls, roof, windows, doors, membranes and everything that separates inside from outside. This layer covers defects in that envelope, and specifically includes unintended water penetration.

This is the coverage that exists because of BC’s leaky condo crisis. Water ingress is the most expensive and most common serious failure in Lower Mainland multi-family construction, and it typically does not reveal itself in the first twelve months. It shows up in year three, after a few winters. Five years is the legislated recognition of that.

10 years: structure

The longest and narrowest layer. It covers structural defects: defects in materials or labour that cause the failure of a load-bearing part of the home, or that compromise its load-bearing function to the point that the home’s safety or habitability is threatened.

This is not cosmetic and it is not “something is a bit off.” It is the foundation, the frame, the load path. Claims are rare. When they happen they are catastrophic, which is why the coverage runs a decade.

The coverage limits

Warranty insurance is capped. The limits are worth knowing before you assume you are covered dollar for dollar:

• Strata unit: the lesser of the first owner’s purchase price or $100,000.
• Detached (fee simple) home: the lesser of the first owner’s purchase price or $200,000.
• Strata common property: the lesser of $100,000 multiplied by the number of dwelling units, or $2.5 million per building.

For most Greater Vancouver condo buyers the practical ceiling on your own unit is $100,000, with a separate pool covering the building’s shared elements. On a large envelope failure the common property limit is the number that matters, and it is shared across every owner in the building.

What the warranty does not cover

The gaps cause more disappointment than the coverage causes relief. Warranty insurance generally does not cover:

• Normal wear and tear, and normal shrinkage of materials as the building dries and settles, such as minor drywall cracking and nail pops.
• Damage from your own actions or neglect, including failure to perform routine maintenance.
• Failure to mitigate. If you notice a leak and let it run for a year, the additional damage is on you.
• Landscaping, appliances and items covered by a manufacturer’s own warranty, though the manufacturer warranty still applies.
• Anything you were told about and accepted before purchase.
• Missed deadlines. Coverage is a claim window, not a guarantee. If you report a defect after its period expires it is not covered, even if the defect existed earlier.

The single most common mistake is assuming someone else will notice. The warranty is claims-based. Nobody inspects your home at month eleven on your behalf. Diarize your dates, walk your unit before each deadline, and submit in writing.

When the clock starts, and why it decides everything

This is the part that matters most for anyone weighing a presale against a finished home.

Warranty coverage generally begins on the date the first owner takes possession of the home, or for common property when the building is complete and the strata is created. It does not begin when you sign your contract, and it does not begin when construction starts.

The consequence: buy a presale and you are the first owner, so you take possession on completion day and receive the full 2-5-10 clock, starting fresh from day one. Buy a completed new home that someone else already took possession of, even if nobody ever lived in it, and you inherit whatever time is left. A unit that completed in 2023 has already burned its two-year labour and materials coverage and is three years into its envelope and structural clocks.

The warranty does transfer to subsequent owners for the remainder of each period, but it does not restart. “Brand new” and “full warranty” are not the same claim, and the difference can be several years of protection.

How to actually use it

1. Find out who your warranty provider is. It is named in your documents, and it is an insurance company, not your builder.
2. Write down your possession date and calculate the 12-month, 15-month, 24-month, 5-year and 10-year deadlines. Put them in your calendar now.
3. Do a deliberate walkthrough before each deadline. Month ten and month twenty-two are the two that catch the most.
4. Report in writing, to both the builder and the warranty provider. A verbal report to a site supervisor is not a claim. Keep dated copies and photographs.
5. For strata common property, work through your strata council. Envelope and structural claims are almost always building-wide, and the strata corporation is the claimant.

What this means for you as a presale buyer

Your orientation walkthrough is warranty work. The deficiency list you build before completion is your first and best chance to document defects while the builder is still on site and motivated. Confirm the builder is licensed and the warranty is in place before you commit, which is a legal requirement and is verifiable. And recognise that being the first owner has real value: a full, unstarted 2-5-10 clock is one of the genuine advantages of buying presale over buying a finished unit that has already changed hands, and it is rarely priced into the comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Is the 2-5-10 warranty mandatory in BC?

Yes. Under the Homeowner Protection Act, new homes must be built by a licensed residential builder and covered by third-party home warranty insurance, with limited exemptions such as certain owner-built homes.

Does the warranty transfer if I sell?

Yes. Coverage attaches to the home and transfers to subsequent owners for whatever remains of each period. It does not reset.

Who pays for the warranty?

The builder arranges and pays for the policy as a cost of the project. You do not buy it separately.

What is the building envelope?

The parts of the building that separate the interior from the exterior: exterior walls, roof, windows, doors and the membranes and assemblies around them. Water penetration through the envelope is covered for five years.

Does the warranty cover my appliances?

Generally no. Appliances are covered by their own manufacturer warranties. The two-year labour and materials coverage applies to the installation and to the building’s electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems.

This is part of our Complete Guide to Buying a Presale in BC, and it pairs with our guide to presale vs. completed new construction, where the warranty clock is often the deciding factor. If you want help checking the warranty position on a specific building, I work with Greater Vancouver new construction buyers in plain language, at no cost to you. Book a consultation.

Read next

• Presale vs. Completed New Construction
• Orientation vs. Completion Date
• Sunset Clauses & Construction Delays

$2,800 a Foot: How Vancouver Presale Pricing Lost the Plot, and How to Spot the Next One

In May, a condo at Westbank’s Butterfly sold. It was the first resale in the building to close on MLS. It had been bought presale for $2,561,000 plus GST. It sold for $1,518,000.

That is a gap of just over a million dollars, and the real damage is worse, because the original buyer also paid GST, property transfer tax, and eventually realtor and legal fees on the way out. Call it roughly ten percent on top.

The million dollar number is what gets shared. It is not the number that should interest you. This one should: that sale prices the building at about $1,425 per square foot. The building’s average presale price, per Altus Group, was about $2,800 per square foot.

The market repriced this real estate at roughly half of what it originally sold for. That is not a story about one seller’s bad luck. That is a story about a price that was never anchored to anything.

First, the honest caveats

I want to be careful here, because there is a difference between analysis and a pile-on.

This is one closed trade. One. Westbank’s position, given to Daily Hive, is that resale listings like these are outliers driven by sellers’ personal circumstances rather than the building’s value, that several sales over the past year were not recorded on MLS, and that Butterfly continues to sell at some of the highest prices per square foot in the city. The “outlier” framing is self-serving, but the underlying point is fair: you cannot draw a trend line through a single dot, and I do not have visibility into the private sales.

I also sell presale condos and townhomes for a living. An article arguing that presale buyers overpaid is an article arguing that people in my business helped them do it. So take the following as someone describing a machine he works inside, not as someone throwing rocks from outside it.

With that said, the single dot sits inside a pattern that is harder to wave off.

It is not one unlucky seller

According to an affidavit from a former employee lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, Westbank’s Alberni by Kengo Kuma has many unsold units and vendor take back mortgages outstanding, while Butterfly itself is well over budget with closings that are slow and uncertain. Vendor take back mortgages are worth pausing on: that is the developer lending the buyer money to complete the purchase. It is a tool you reach for when buyers cannot or will not close at the contract price.

Meanwhile, Westbank’s Joyce 2, a 35 storey, 360 unit rental tower, went into receivership this spring. The filings are specific. OPTrust said the loan matured December 31, 2025, that National Bank issued a demand in January after at least six defaults, that a cost consultant estimated $15.5 million in overruns, and that as of March 19 it was owed $109,211,965 with default interest running at $60,136 a day.

Three different symptoms, one underlying condition: the revenue assumptions did not survive contact with the market.

And this is not confined to one developer. CMHC’s own outlook says a significant decline in condominium presales in Vancouver and Victoria has stalled many planned projects, and expects more to be postponed or cancelled in 2026 with effects running into 2027 and 2028. Steve Saretsky has documented an assignment market so illiquid that realtors stopped taking the listings. Westbank is the most visible case because it built the most visible buildings. It is not the disease.

So how did $2,800 a foot ever make sense?

This is the part most coverage skips, because “buyers were greedy idiots” is easier to write. They weren’t. Every leg of that price had a real argument behind it at the time.

Architecture was sold as an asset class. Not a home with nice design, but a piece of art you could live in, by a name architect, singular and unrepeatable. The implicit promise was that scarcity of design translates into scarcity of value. Nobody ever wrote that promise down, because it cannot be underwritten.

Scarcity was framed as permanent. Land is finite, the city won’t approve towers like this again, the West End will never build another Butterfly. All true. None of it means a buyer will exist at $2,800 a foot in 2026.

The exit door was the product. For most of the last cycle you did not need an end user to justify the price, because you could assign the contract before completion to the next person who believed the same thing. Presale pricing was underwritten by the assignment market, not by the resale market. That worked exactly as long as assignments stayed liquid.

Money was nearly free, and then it wasn’t. Foreign buyer, speculation, and empty homes taxes drained the international trophy bid over several years. Then the Bank of Canada’s 2022 rate shock removed the cheap leverage. The bid did not soften. It left.

Put those together and you get the honest description of what a $2,800 per foot presale actually was: not a price, but a bet that someone else would pay more before you had to close. When the assignment market froze, buyers discovered what they had really bought, which was an obligation to complete at a number set in a different universe. The completion date does not negotiate. It just arrives.

The actual question: is it a good project, or a well marketed one?

Here is what I would tell a client today, and what I wish more people had been told in 2018.

Look at the spread, not the price. Compare the presale price per foot to what finished, comparable product sells for in that same neighbourhood right now. If a presale asks 40% more than the resale market next door, that spread is not a bonus. It is the risk. You are pre paying for appreciation that has to actually happen. Sometimes a modest premium is defensible for new construction, warranty, and a genuinely better location. Double is not a premium. It is a bet.

Ask who the buyer is at completion, not today. Every project has a story about who wants it. Ask what happens if that buyer is gone in four years. If the honest answer is that only an investor would want this unit, and investors have left the presale market, you have a problem with no floor under it.

Separate the concrete from the brochure. Good design genuinely holds value. What does not reliably resell is the marketing narrative wrapped around it. A useful test: strip out the architect’s name, the renderings, the sales centre, and the launch event. Would you pay this per foot for this floorplan, in this location, at this quality? If the answer is no, you are buying the story.

Underwrite the developer’s balance sheet, not their brand. Prestige is not solvency. Ask about the lender, whether the project is financed to completion, and what their recent completions actually closed at. Vendor take back mortgages and quiet bulk sales are a tell.

Assume you cannot assign. Not “assume it’s hard.” Assume the door is welded shut and you will complete this purchase with your own financing, in whatever market exists on that date. If the deal only works if you can flip it, you don’t have a deal.

The finished today test. If this building were standing right now, complete, and offered to you at this price, would you buy it? If you would only buy it because it is not built yet and might be worth more later, you are not buying real estate. You are buying time, and time is the one thing presale contracts are worst at protecting.

The point

Hype is not the enemy. Great buildings deserve great marketing, and Vancouver is genuinely better for having ambitious architecture in it. The Butterfly is a beautiful thing and will still be beautiful in fifty years.

The problem was never the hype. It was that at some point the hype stopped being the wrapper around the price and became the reason for it. When that happens, the building can be everything the brochure promised and the buyer still loses a million dollars, because they weren’t paying for the building.

Ask what you are actually paying for. If a meaningful part of the answer is “the feeling in this sales centre,” walk out and think about it for a week. The good projects will still be there.

If you are evaluating a specific presale and want a second set of eyes on the numbers, get in touch. I will tell you when the math doesn’t work, including on projects I represent.

Vancouver’s Villages Plan, Explained: What’s Changing, and Why “Rezoned” Doesn’t Mean “Built”

Update, July 29, 2026: On July 28, Vancouver City Council rejected the Villages Plan in a 10-1 vote. I have written a full breakdown of what happened and what it means for buyers. The explanation below of what the plan was still stands.

On July 14, 2026, Vancouver City Council holds a public hearing on the Villages Plan. If you own a home, rent, or are thinking about buying a presale anywhere near a small shopping node in this city, it is worth understanding, because this is one of the largest single rezonings the city has ever attempted. Roughly 13,000 to 14,000 properties, about 14 percent of all the land parcels in Vancouver, are being rezoned in one motion across 17 areas.

Most coverage so far has been written for planners or for people already fired up about it. This is the plain version for buyers and owners who have never had a reason to learn what “zoning” actually means. I sell presale condos and townhomes for a living, so I will also flag the thing the headlines skip: a zoning map changing overnight is not the same as buildings going up. More on that below.

The one-breath version

The city has identified 17 “Villages,” small areas built around existing shopping corners, and wants to allow more homes and more shops in each one. Think townhomes, small apartment buildings up to six storeys, and buildings with stores at street level and homes above. The goal is neighbourhoods where you can walk to a coffee, a grocer, and a pharmacy instead of driving.

That part is not controversial. The way the city is doing it is.

First question: does this touch my block?

Normally when a lot gets rezoned, a developer applies, and there is a public process for that one site. The Villages Plan flips that. The City itself is rezoning all 13,000 plus lots at once, without waiting for anyone to apply. Planners call this a city initiated rezoning. In practice it means your property, or the one next to you, could have brand new building rights the day after Council votes, with no separate application and no separate hearing.

To find out if you are affected, the simple test is location. The Villages are clustered around existing retail corners in areas like Kerrisdale, Dunbar, Kitsilano’s edge, Riley Park, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Renfrew, and several others. If your home sits within a short walk of one of those shopping nodes, check the City’s Villages map on the Shape Your City website. Being inside a Village boundary is what matters.

Second question: what could get built next door?

This is where a bit of jargon becomes useful. The main one is FSR, or floor space ratio. It is just the size of a building compared to the size of its lot. An FSR of 2.5 means you can build floor area equal to two and a half times the lot. Higher FSR means a bigger building.

The plan creates new zones and splits the city roughly by geography:

• East side. Lower rise residential areas use an existing residential zone (R3-1), and shopping corners use a new zone called C-2D.
• West side. Residential areas use a new zone called R3-4, and shopping corners use a new zone called C-2E.

On the shopping corners, the numbers look like this. A secured rental building can generally reach about 3.5 to 3.7 FSR and six storeys. A strata condo building is held lower, around 2.5 FSR and four storeys. On sites close to rapid transit, buildings can go up to eight storeys. Any building on these corners has to include shops at street level, so the plan adds retail space, not just homes.

There is one detail that quietly shapes who benefits. On the west side, the new R3-4 zone sets a minimum lot frontage of 50 feet before you can build the larger six storey form. A typical older Vancouver lot is only 33 feet wide. That means a single homeowner usually cannot build the big building alone. Two or more neighbours have to sell together, or an assembler buys the block. So the “gentle density” language is real, but the mechanism rewards land assembly, which tends to favour buyers with deep pockets over individual owners. Whether that is good or bad depends on your point of view, but it is worth knowing before anyone knocks on your door with an offer.

Third question: when does any of this actually happen?

Here is the part I would underline for anyone treating this as an investment story. Rezoning changes what is legally allowed. It does not build anything, and it does not set a timeline.

The city has calibrated the density and the affordability rules against a consultant’s feasibility analysis, meaning the rules are meant to let projects pencil out without being so generous that nothing gets delivered. Critics have questioned that modelling, and honestly the real test is the market, not the spreadsheet. At today’s construction costs, land prices, and interest rates, a large share of these newly rezoned lots will not be financially worth building for years. Even the city’s own process shows patience: privately driven rezonings can move now, but development permit applications will not be processed until October 2026.

So expect the map to change fast and the skyline to change slowly, and only where the math works. If someone tells you a Village is about to transform, ask them which specific projects are funded. Usually the answer is none yet.

Why some people are fighting it

There are really two separate objections, and they get blurred together.

The first is about design and character. A group of planners, architects, and academics argues that applying one template to 17 different neighbourhoods at once flattens what makes each one distinct, and that you cannot plan for “community” the same way you plan for raw density. This is a taste and urban design argument, and reasonable people land on both sides of it.

The second is about process, and it is the one generating the most heat. Because the Villages Plan is an amendment to the city’s overarching land use plan, once Council approves it, future projects that fit the new rules will not need their own public hearings. For a lot of residents, July 14 is effectively the last chance to speak on what gets built near them, possibly for a very long time. Add weak public awareness, a summer timeline, and the sheer scale of 14 percent of the city moving at once, and you get the “last hearing” anxiety you may have seen online. Some of that commentary is measured. Some of it is activist framing that treats worst case assumptions as fact, so read it critically, the same way you should read anyone (including me) who has a stake in the outcome.

So what if you are buying or building here?

A few honest takeaways.

If you are a homeowner inside a Village, your land may be worth more to an assembler than it was last year, especially if you are on a corner or your neighbours are willing to sell together. That is an opportunity, not an obligation, and the rezoning itself creates no rush.

If you are a presale buyer, do not pay a premium today for a neighbourhood that exists only on a zoning map. The Village vision is a decade long story, not a two year one. Buy the actual project on its own merits: the builder, the location, the price, the deposit structure, and the completion date. If the surrounding area fills in later, treat that as upside, not as the reason to buy.

If you are a small builder or investor, the opportunity is real but concentrated. The lots that will move first are the ones where assembly is straightforward and the numbers already work, largely secured rental on the corners rather than four storey strata. The affordability requirements on the west side, including a below market rental component on the larger rental buildings, will shape which sites are worth pursuing.

The Villages Plan is neither the housing miracle nor the neighbourhood apocalypse it gets described as. It is a big, permanent change to the rules, followed by a slow, uneven, market driven change to the buildings. Knowing the difference between those two is most of what you need to read the next few years correctly.

If you own or are considering buying in one of the 17 Village areas and want to understand what it means for your specific block, feel free to reach out.

Market Report: Ottawa and B.C.’s $5-Billion Housing Deal and What It Means for Metro Vancouver Presale Buyers

Today in Vancouver, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier David Eby announced a landmark federal-provincial partnership that puts more than $5 billion into British Columbia’s local infrastructure over the next ten years. It is a big, complicated announcement with a lot of moving parts, from health facilities to transit to schools in Tumbler Ridge, but tucked inside it are several measures that speak directly to anyone weighing a presale condo purchase in Metro Vancouver. This report pulls out the parts that matter for buyers and translates them into plain language.

The short version: the two governments are trying to make it cheaper and faster to build homes, convert vacant condos into affordable housing, and fund the transit that makes new neighbourhoods liveable. None of it changes your decision tomorrow morning, but all of it shapes the market you are buying into over the next few years.

Lower development charges could ease pressure on presale prices

The headline measure for homebuyers is a plan to cut development charges. Through the new Build Communities Strong Fund, Ottawa is committing nearly $1.6 billion over ten years, matched by British Columbia for a total of up to $3.2 billion, to lower development charges on multi-unit housing by up to 50% in priority communities. The government estimates this could save up to $40,000 per unit, and the same money is meant to expand the water, wastewater, and road infrastructure that new housing depends on.

Why does this matter to a presale buyer? Because development charges are a real cost that developers bake into the price of every new condo. When a municipality charges tens of thousands of dollars in fees per door, that number shows up in your purchase price. Cutting those charges does not guarantee lower presale prices, since developers respond to the whole market and not just one input, but it removes a meaningful cost pressure and, in priority communities, it could make the difference between a project that pencils out and one that gets shelved. For buyers, more viable projects means more choice and more competition among developers for your deposit.

A condo-conversion partnership aimed squarely at vacant inventory

The most striking line for anyone following the Metro Vancouver presale story is the new Canada-British Columbia Partnership on Condo Conversion. Through Build Canada Homes and BC Housing, the two governments say they will use financing tools to convert more than 2,200 vacant condo units in priority growth areas into affordable homes.

Readers of these notes know that completed-but-unsold inventory has been one of the defining features of this market, with thousands of finished units sitting empty after the 2021-2022 building boom delivered into a softer market. This program takes direct aim at that overhang. Pulling 2,200-plus vacant units into affordable housing could gradually thin the glut of standing inventory, which over time supports pricing for the units that remain on the open market. It is not an overnight fix, and the program is subject to Treasury Board approvals, but the direction is clear: governments want those empty homes occupied, fast.

$284 million to knock down barriers to building

On top of the infrastructure money, the federal government has introduced legislation for a one-time transfer of $284 million to British Columbia specifically to reduce barriers to new construction. The release does not spell out exactly how the province will deploy it, but the intent is to grease the wheels: fewer delays, fewer roadblocks between an approved project and shovels in the ground. For presale buyers, the relevant takeaway is timing, because measures that speed up approvals tend to shorten the gap between launch and completion, which is the single biggest variable in any presale purchase.

Transit money reinforces the Surrey-Langley corridor

Transit is where infrastructure spending most reliably shows up in property values, and there is real money here. Through the Canada Public Transit Fund, Ottawa is committing $2.5 billion over ten years to build new transit, and the release specifically names the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, already under construction, as a project this supports. That is in addition to $852 million previously announced for TransLink and BC Transit.

For buyers, transit corridors are where presale demand tends to concentrate and hold value. The Surrey-Langley extension has been a focus of presale activity precisely because rapid transit reshapes commute times and, with them, where people are willing to live. A renewed federal funding commitment reduces the risk that the project stalls, and a SkyTrain line that actually opens on schedule is exactly the kind of catalyst that supports presale values along its route. If you have been watching Surrey, Fleetwood, Clayton, or Langley presales, this announcement is a reason to keep watching.

The rest of the package, in brief

Much of the $5 billion goes beyond housing: more than $600 million (matched to $1.2 billion) over three years for hospitals, emergency rooms, and urgent care; up to $50 million for coastal community projects with priority to Terrace and Prince Rupert; and $100 million each from both governments for a new secondary school and health-centre work in Tumbler Ridge. These are not presale stories, but they matter to the broader case the governments are making: that growing communities need the schools, hospitals, and services that make new housing somewhere people actually want to live.

What this means for buyers

Step back and the throughline is consistent: lower the cost of building, speed up approvals, convert empty units, and fund the transit that anchors new neighbourhoods. For a Metro Vancouver presale buyer, the practical implications are modest in the near term and meaningful over the medium term. Do not expect this announcement to move a price tag next week. Do expect it to shape which projects get built, how quickly they complete, and how much standing inventory is competing with them.

If you are shopping now, two things are worth doing. First, pay attention to which municipalities are designated priority communities for the development-charge cuts as the details roll out, because those are the places where new supply and developer incentives are most likely to cluster. Second, keep transit corridors, especially Surrey-Langley, near the top of your list, since funded, in-progress rapid transit remains one of the most durable supports for presale value.

As always, an announcement is a signal, not a guarantee. Many of these measures depend on bilateral agreements and approvals still to come. But the policy wind is blowing toward more building and a thinner inventory overhang, and that is a backdrop worth understanding before you sign a presale contract.

Want this translated for your situation?

Policy moves like this one are easy to read about and hard to act on. If you want to understand what today’s announcement means for a specific neighbourhood, project, or budget, and get early access to Metro Vancouver presales positioned to benefit, register for VIP presale access at vancouverdwelling.ca. I read the fine print so you can make a clear-eyed decision.

Why June 2026 May Be the Best Window for Vancouver Presale Buyers in Years

If you have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right moment to buy a presale condo in Metro Vancouver, the past week handed you two pieces of news worth paying attention to. On June 10, the Bank of Canada held its policy rate steady at 2.25% for the fifth decision in a row, keeping the prime rate at 4.45%. At the same time, the region is sitting on a record-sized pile of unsold condos, and developers are doing something they almost never do in Vancouver: competing hard for your business.

For most of the last decade, Vancouver presales were a seller’s game. You lined up, you took whatever unit you could get, and you felt lucky to be allowed in. That dynamic has flipped. For buyers who have been priced out or simply outbid for years, this is the kind of market that does not come around often. Let me walk you through what is actually happening and what it means if you are considering a presale purchase right now.

A rate hold is quietly good news for presale buyers

When the Bank of Canada pauses, headlines tend to shrug. But for presale buyers, stability is its own kind of gift. The overnight rate sitting at 2.25% means the prime rate stays at 4.45%, and variable and adjustable mortgage holders saw no change from this decision. Just as importantly, the Bank’s current posture suggests rates are expected to hold around this level through 2026, with the next announcement scheduled for July 15.

Why does that matter when you are buying a home that may not complete for two or three years? Because presales are fundamentally a bet on what your financing will look like at completion, not today. A predictable rate environment makes that bet far easier to plan around. You can model your future mortgage payment with more confidence, your lender can give you a cleaner pre-approval picture, and you are not trying to time a moving target. After several years of whiplash, boring and stable is exactly what a presale buyer wants to hear.

The oversupply story is the real headline

Here is the part that should genuinely excite buyers. Metro Vancouver is carrying a remarkable amount of finished, empty inventory. CMHC data reported by CBC found roughly 2,500 completed condos sitting vacant and unsold across the region, a figure that doubled from the year before. More recent counts put Greater Vancouver at 5,458 completed and unsold condo units, nearly matching the all-time record.

That overhang is the result of the 2021 and 2022 presale boom finally delivering. Towers that sold out years ago in places like Northeast False Creek and along Beach Avenue are completing into a much softer market than the one they were sold into. The result is an inventory glut that keeps downward pressure on prices and, crucially, shifts negotiating power toward the buyer.

It is worth being honest about the flip side, because it explains the opportunity. Buyers who purchased at 2021 and 2022 peak prices are in a tough spot, with some facing paper losses of $100,000 to $500,000 or more as their units complete into today’s values. That is painful for them, but it is precisely why discounts and motivated sellers exist right now.

Developers are competing for you again

In a normal Vancouver cycle, incentives are an afterthought. Not in 2026. To move standing inventory and de-risk new launches, developers across Metro Vancouver presales are layering on incentives that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: reduced deposit structures, in some cases as low as 10% and occasionally lower, decorating and furniture allowances, capped or defrayed strata fees, parking and storage thrown in, and even buy-back or rental guarantees on certain projects.

Polygon Homes CEO Neil Chrystal has publicly suggested 2026 could be a great time to buy if prices stay soft and these incentives persist. When a major builder is openly framing the moment that way, it tells you how the supply side is feeling. For a buyer, every one of those incentives is real money or real flexibility, and they are negotiable in a way they simply were not during the frenzy years.

The assignment market is another door worth opening

Beyond brand-new launches, the secondary presale market deserves a serious look right now. Assignment sales, where you take over someone else’s presale contract before the building completes, are where some of the steepest discounts are showing up. With early buyers from the boom looking to exit before completion, one-bedroom assignments have reportedly traded at 3% to 7% below original contract prices in some buildings, and broader incentive packages in the resale-of-contract space have run even deeper.

Assignments are more complex than a straightforward presale, with tax treatment and contract terms you need to understand before signing, so this is a corner of the market to walk into with good advice. But for the right buyer, it can mean stepping into a quality unit at a price the original purchaser would envy.

What this means for buyers

If you are considering a Vancouver presale right now, the practical takeaways are straightforward. First, treat this as a negotiating market, not a lineup. Ask what the developer will do on deposit structure, price, and included extras, because the answer in June 2026 is often more than you think. Second, use the rate stability to get a clear, current pre-approval and to model your completion-day payment realistically rather than optimistically. Third, look at both new launches and the assignment market, since the best value may be in a contract someone else is motivated to offload. And finally, slow down enough to do real due diligence on the developer, the completion timeline, and the building’s pricing relative to comparable finished inventory, because a buyer’s market rewards patience.

None of this is a promise that prices have hit bottom. The same oversupply creating these deals is also what keeps prices under pressure, so this is about buying a home you want at a genuinely fair price, not about flipping for a quick gain. But if your plan is to own and live in or hold a Metro Vancouver presale condo, the combination of stable rates, deep inventory, and motivated developers is about as favourable a setup as buyers have seen in years.

Ready to make the most of this window?

The deals in this market are not always the ones advertised on the billboard. The best pricing, the strongest incentives, and the early access to new launches tend to go to buyers who are organized and connected before they shop. If you want first look at Metro Vancouver presales and the negotiating insight to use this moment well, register for VIP presale access at vancouverdwelling.ca. I will help you cut through the noise and find the right unit at the right price.

Your 200-Page Presale Contract: The Pages That Actually Matter

A presale purchase is not one document. It is a stack, and it can run well past 200 pages between the contract, the disclosure statement, and the addendums. No one expects you to read all of it like a novel. But some sections decide your outcome, and others are boilerplate you can skim. Here is how to spend your reading time well.

Read these sections closely

• The deposit schedule. Amounts, dates, and how the money is held. Every date is a hard deadline.
• Completion dates. The estimated completion date and the outside (sunset) date, and the gap between them.
• The developer’s right to make changes. How much they can alter your unit, the finishes, and the building.
• Assignment terms. Whether you can sell before completion, the fee, and the restrictions.
• Default and termination. What you lose if you miss a payment or cannot complete, and who can cancel the deal.
• The finishes addendum. What materials and appliances are actually guaranteed, versus shown in the display suite.
• Strata budget and bylaws. Proposed fees, and any rental or pet restrictions, in the disclosure statement.

You can skim these

Much of the bulk is standard legal and procedural language: definitions, notice provisions, standard representations, and boilerplate that is similar across most developers. It still matters, which is why your lawyer reviews it, but it is not where you should spend your own first pass.

A practical reading method

Work through it during your seven-day rescission window in this order: deposit schedule, completion dates, developer change rights, assignment terms, default and termination, then the finishes and the disclosure statement budget. Keep a short list of anything that surprises you or that you do not understand, and bring that list to a real estate lawyer before the window closes. That single page of questions is worth more than reading every clause yourself.

The point of all this paper

The volume is not there to intimidate you. It is there because you are buying something that does not exist yet, and the document has to cover years of construction and every contingency. Treat it as a map of your risks, focus on the sections that carry real consequences, and use professional help for the rest.

This pairs with our guides to what to look for in a presale contract and the 7-day rescission period.

This is part of our Complete Guide to Buying a Presale in BC. If you want help cutting a 200-page stack down to what matters, I work with Greater Vancouver presale buyers in plain language, at no cost to you. Book a consultation.

Read next

• What to Look For in a Presale Contract
• The Contract of Purchase and Sale
• Disclosure Statements & Amendments

This article is general information, not legal advice. Always have your specific documents reviewed by a BC real estate lawyer before signing.

What to Look For in a Presale Contract (Even When You Can’t Change It)

Most presale contracts are not negotiable. That surprises buyers, and it leads some to assume there is no point reading the fine print. The opposite is true. You may not be able to change the terms, but you can understand them, and decide whether to sign, while your rescission window is still open. Here is what to look for.

The clauses that matter most

• The completion dates. Find both the estimated completion date and the outside (sunset) date. The gap between them is how much delay you may have to absorb.
• The deposit schedule. Confirm every amount and date, and that deposits are held in trust.
• The developer’s right to make changes. Most contracts let the developer alter finishes, materials, sizes, or layouts within limits. Know how wide those limits are.
• Assignment terms. Whether you can sell before completion, the fee, and any restrictions.
• What happens on default. What you lose if you miss a deposit or cannot complete.
• Termination and sunset rights. Who can cancel, when, and what happens to your deposit and interest.

Red flags worth a closer look

None of these mean you should walk away, but each deserves attention and a question to your lawyer:

• An outside completion date that is years beyond the estimate.
• Broad developer powers to change the unit or the building with little recourse for you.
• Deposit terms that are unusually high or front-loaded.
• Vague or one-sided language around delays and cancellation.
• Anything in the brochure that you cannot find reflected in the contract.

How to actually do it

Read the contract and every addendum during your seven-day rescission window, not after. Have a real estate lawyer review them, and write down anything that is unclear so you can get answers before the window closes. The point is not to renegotiate. The point is to sign with your eyes open, or to walk away at no cost if the terms are not right for you.

This pairs with our guides to the Contract of Purchase and Sale and the 7-day rescission period.

This is part of our Complete Guide to Buying a Presale in BC. If you want a second read of a contract you cannot change, I help Greater Vancouver presale buyers spot what matters, in plain language, at no cost to you. Book a consultation.

Read next

• The Contract of Purchase and Sale
• Addendums Explained
• The 7-Day Rescission Period

This article is general information, not legal advice. Contract terms vary by developer and project. Confirm the details with a BC real estate lawyer before signing.

A Buyer’s Guide to Near-Completion Presales in Metro Vancouver

Most people think of a presale condo as something you buy years before it’s built. You hand over a deposit, wait out a long construction timeline, and hope everything goes according to plan. But there’s another category of presale that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: near-completion inventory. These are units in projects that are already built, or weeks to months away from completion, where the original presale buyers are assigning their contracts or developers still hold unsold suites.

Right now, in mid-2026, this category of inventory is one of the most interesting opportunities in Metro Vancouver’s condo market. With over 26 projects completing across the region this year and new presale launches effectively stalled, there is a real volume of near-completion units available, and motivated sellers on the other side of the table. This guide walks you through how to evaluate these opportunities intelligently.

What Exactly Is Near-Completion Presale Inventory?

Near-completion inventory comes in two forms. The first is developer-held units: suites that were never sold during the original presale campaign, or were released back to the developer, that are now being offered as the building nears or reaches occupancy. The second is assignment sales: the original presale buyer is transferring their contract to a new buyer before the title transfers, typically because they no longer want to complete the purchase.

Both types can offer real value in the current market. Developer-held units in a soft market often come with negotiating room on price, upgrades, or closing costs. Assignments from original buyers who purchased in 2021–22 are sometimes priced at a loss relative to what was originally paid, not because anything is wrong with the unit, but because the seller needs to exit a contract they can no longer sustain.

How to Evaluate Whether the Price Is Actually Good

The most important step is understanding what comparable completed units are selling for in the same building and neighbourhood. Pull recent resale sales data for similar-sized suites nearby: your realtor can provide this. If the near-completion unit is priced at or below the resale comparable, you’re likely getting fair value or better. If it’s still priced significantly above resale, the seller may not yet have adjusted their expectations to match the market.

Also factor in the GST. Presale condos (including assignment) are subject to GST, typically five per cent of the purchase price, which is not applicable on most resale purchases. Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples when you look at total acquisition cost. A $700,000 near-completion unit carries roughly $35,000 in GST on top of the purchase price.

What Due Diligence Looks Like on a Completing Project

With a near-completion building, you have access to information that’s simply not available when you buy into a project years before it’s built. Use it.

Walk the building. Request access to the specific suite if possible, or at minimum to a comparable unit in the building. Check the quality of finishes, the suite layout, and how the common areas feel. Look at the parking and storage situation. Ask whether the building has received its occupancy permit and, if not, what the projected timeline is.

Read the disclosure statement carefully. This is the legal document the developer is required to provide that outlines everything about the project, the developer’s background, the strata bylaws, any restrictions on rentals or pets, estimated strata fees, and any amendments made during construction. Your real estate lawyer should review this with you before you sign anything.

Check strata fee estimates. Developers are required to estimate monthly strata fees in the disclosure statement. These are sometimes set low and can increase once the strata takes over management. Ask whether the building has a professional property manager lined up and what the estimated contingency reserve fund contribution is.

Questions to Ask Before You Make an Offer

There are a handful of questions worth asking directly before you proceed, whether you’re dealing with a developer rep or an assigning buyer’s realtor.

What is the current presale percentage of the building? How many units are sold versus unsold? A building that is 95 per cent sold is a very different situation than one that is 50 per cent sold, where the developer may still be dealing with a large volume of unsold units that could affect the strata’s financial stability early on.

Has the construction financing been fully discharged, or is it still in place? Your lawyer will flag this, but it’s worth asking upfront.

Are there any known deficiencies or construction issues that have been identified during the inspection process? Reputable developers will disclose known issues; if the answer is a flat “no” delivered too quickly, it’s worth probing further.

What are the deposit adjustment terms? In an assignment, the amount of the original deposit being transferred and how it’s handled can vary. Make sure your lawyer reviews the assignment agreement in detail.

The Most Important Thing to Remember

Near-completion presales offer something rare in Vancouver: the ability to see what you’re buying before you fully commit. That’s a significant advantage over a traditional presale where you’re buying based on renderings and floor plans. Use that advantage. Take the time to visit the building, read the documents, and run the numbers independently. The deal that feels urgent is rarely as urgent as it’s presented, and in the current market, with inventory levels elevated and buyer demand soft, you have more time and more leverage than buyers have had in years.

For personalized guidance on which near-completion projects in Metro Vancouver are worth your attention right now, visit vancouverdwelling.ca/market-intel/.

No New Launches, But 26 Projects Completing: The Metro Vancouver Presale Opportunity Most Buyers Are Missing

If you’ve been watching the Metro Vancouver presale market and wondering why nothing new seems to be launching, you’re not imagining it. The first quarter of 2026 recorded zero concrete condo launches across the entire region, compared to 152 in Q1 2025. Developers who can’t hit the presale thresholds required for construction financing are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for conditions to improve before they commit to a new tower.

For buyers, the instinct is often to wait too, to hold off until the market “does something.” But there’s a compelling case to be made that the smartest move right now isn’t waiting for the next launch. It’s looking at what’s already built, or nearly built, and negotiating from a position of real strength.

This year, more than 26 notable projects are reaching completion across Metro Vancouver. That means a meaningful volume of near-completion and move-in-ready presale inventory is entering the market, often held by developers who are highly motivated to close. And in a buyers’ market where condo prices are down nearly 8 per cent year-over-year, that motivation translates directly into negotiating room for buyers who know what to look for.

Why Zero New Launches Is Actually News Worth Paying Attention To

The absence of new launches isn’t just a curiosity. It has real downstream consequences for buyers over the next two to three years. When developers aren’t launching today, the supply pipeline thins out considerably for 2028 and beyond. Metro Vancouver’s population is still growing. Demand for housing isn’t disappearing. What’s happening now is a compression in the pipeline, not a structural end to presale development.

The practical implication: buyers who secure a unit in a completing project today are locking in at today’s softened prices, with a much shorter wait to occupancy than a traditional presale, and with far less uncertainty about whether the project will actually get built, because it already has been.

What’s Completing in 2026

Several significant projects are wrapping up across the region this year. In Burnaby, Concord Pacific’s first phase at Concord Metrotown involves three towers, 65, 45, and 33 storeys, totalling nearly 1,400 condominium homes, all reaching substantial completion this year. Also in Burnaby, Polygon Homes’ 38-storey Perla tower is delivering approximately 330 strata market homes. In Coquitlam, Concert Properties’ 50-storey Myriad tower is working through final inspections.

These are projects from well-established developers with strong track records of delivery in Metro Vancouver. That matters enormously at the due diligence stage, and it’s part of what makes completing inventory so different in risk profile from a new launch where construction hasn’t even begun.

Across the wider region, the Daily Hive has identified 26 notable projects reaching completion in 2026 in Metro Vancouver. That’s a significant volume of inventory entering a market where buyer demand remains soft, which sets up a genuine negotiation window that is unlikely to last once the broader market turns.

The Rate Environment: Fixed Rates Have Risen, But Variable Remains Workable

One piece of context that matters for buyers right now: fixed mortgage rates have climbed due to rising bond yields. Major bank five-year fixed rates are sitting around 4.29 per cent as of late April, with some brokers offering closer to 3.9 per cent. Variable rates through brokers are available around 3.4 to 3.65 per cent, with the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate held at 2.25 per cent on April 29, and the prime rate at 4.45 per cent.

For buyers considering near-completion presale units, this rate environment is actually more predictable than it would be for a traditional presale with a two-to-three year completion window. You can get a rate hold or firm mortgage pre-approval now because you’re buying something that will complete within months, not years. That clarity removes one of the major uncertainties that hangs over conventional presale purchases in a volatile rate environment.

What the Price Correction Means in Practice

Metro Vancouver condo prices are currently sitting approximately 7.9 per cent below where they were a year ago, with the benchmark condo price in the region around $708,000, down roughly 6.8 per cent year-over-year. BC home sales more broadly came in at 6,315 transactions in April, down 1.9 per cent compared to April 2025.

For buyers, this correction isn’t a reason to panic or stay out. It’s a recalibration to more realistic levels after years of prices that were, by most measures, unsustainable. Buying at today’s prices in a completing project means you’re not paying a 2021 premium. You’re paying a 2026 price with 2026 context, in a building you can walk through before you sign.

What This Means for Buyers Right Now

The window of genuine buyer advantage in Metro Vancouver doesn’t stay open indefinitely. It opens when inventory is high, launches are slow, and developers are motivated, and that’s exactly the conditions in play right now. Here’s how to approach it practically.

First, focus your search on projects that are 90 per cent or more complete, or already at occupancy. These are the situations where developers want to close quickly and will often negotiate on assignment pricing, upgrades, or deposit structures. Second, verify the developer’s financial standing and project completion status independently, your real estate lawyer can help with this. Third, get your financing in order now, before you’re in a negotiation. A buyer who walks in pre-approved moves faster and negotiates harder than one who hasn’t.

The market is offering something it doesn’t offer often: time. Use it to prepare, then act when the right opportunity presents itself.

The Bottom Line

Zero new presale launches sounds like bad news. In reality, for buyers who understand the market, it’s a signal that the window of opportunity in completing and near-completion inventory is wide open. Twenty-six projects wrapping up across Metro Vancouver this year, softened prices, motivated developers, and a stable rate environment for near-term closings, the pieces are in place for buyers who are ready.

If you’d like to know which completing projects in Metro Vancouver are worth a serious look right now, register at vancouverdwelling.ca/market-intel/ and I’ll make sure you hear about the right opportunities first.

Jacky, Vancouver Dwelling

Sources: Business in Vancouver, Daily Hive Urbanized, Storeys, RBC Royal Bank, BCREA, CREA.

Metro Vancouver Presale Market Report — May 2026

Metro Vancouver’s presale condo market remains at historic lows heading into the final stretch of May 2026, but the picture is more nuanced than the headline numbers suggest. New project launches have effectively stopped, completing inventory is rising, and buyers are operating in conditions that haven’t existed in this city for over a decade. Here is the data as it stands.

Presale Activity and Launches

The first quarter of 2026 recorded zero concrete condo launches across Metro Vancouver, compared to 152 in the same period of 2025. Broader BC presale unit sales came in at just 124 transactions in Q1 2026, against approximately 6,000 in Q1 2021 at the peak of the market. Townhome launches also softened, with 334 project launches in Q1 versus 507 a year prior.

The reason is structural: Canada’s major banks typically require developers to presell approximately 70 per cent of a building’s units before providing construction financing, and that threshold is currently out of reach for most new projects. An estimated 61 per cent of the 16,589 presale units tracked across the region sit below that threshold. Industry groups are lobbying lenders to reduce the requirement to 50 per cent, a level more aligned with federal banking regulator OSFI guidance, but no formal change has been announced.

On the other side of the equation, more than 26 notable projects are reaching completion in Metro Vancouver in 2026, including major deliveries in Burnaby and Coquitlam. This completing inventory represents the most active segment of the presale market right now.

Resale Condo Conditions

The broader resale condo market provides the pricing context for presale decisions. The benchmark condo price in Metro Vancouver sits at approximately $708,000 as of May 2026, down roughly 6.8 per cent year-over-year. Overall Metro Vancouver benchmark home prices came in at $1,098,000 in April 2026, a 6.9 per cent annual decline and a 0.6 per cent decrease from March. Apartment sales fell 10.7 per cent year-over-year in April, while detached home sales rose 14 per cent, a notable divergence within the market.

Active listings across Metro Vancouver remain elevated at approximately 37 per cent above the 10-year seasonal average, and the sales-to-active-listings ratio for apartments is around 14 per cent, below the 20 per cent threshold that generally signals balanced conditions. BC residential sales totalled 6,315 transactions in April, down 1.9 per cent from April 2025.

Financing and Interest Rate Environment

The Bank of Canada held its overnight rate at 2.25 per cent on April 29, 2026, leaving the prime rate at 4.45 per cent. No rate change is widely anticipated before the next decision date of June 10. Variable mortgage rates through brokers are available in the 3.4 to 3.65 per cent range. Five-year fixed rates have risen due to upward pressure on government bond yields; major bank rates sit around 4.29 per cent, with broker rates closer to 3.9 per cent for well-qualified buyers.

Inventory and Absorption

With launches stalled and completing inventory rising, the effective supply picture is shifting. Unsold developer inventory in completing buildings is moving slowly, in some projects, sales have slowed to one or two units per month, creating holding cost pressure that is motivating discounting and negotiation. Reports of bulk unit sales to institutional buyers at 15 to 20 per cent below asking have surfaced across Metro Vancouver.

For individual buyers, this environment translates to genuine negotiating leverage that has been absent from this market for most of the past decade. The BCREA forecasts BC residential sales to fall a further 2.1 per cent to 68,700 units for the full year 2026, with average prices expected to decline approximately 1.4 per cent to $939,800.

Outlook

The near-term trajectory points to continued softness in new launches through at least the second half of 2026. The completing inventory wave currently moving through the market will provide negotiating opportunities for buyers through mid-year before absorption gradually reduces the available stock. Rate stability at current levels supports buyer purchasing power, though upward pressure on fixed rates bears watching heading into Q3.

Stay current at vancouverdwelling.ca/market-intel/

Jacky, Vancouver Dwelling

Data sources: Business in Vancouver, BCREA, CREA, Daily Hive Urbanized, Storeys, Bank of Canada (April 29 2026 rate decision), RBC Royal Bank.

The $50,000 Reason First-Time Buyers Should Be Looking at Vancouver Presales Right Now

If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines watching the Metro Vancouver presale market, waiting for the right moment to make a move, this might genuinely be it. A new federal law that quietly received Royal Assent in March 2026 could hand first-time buyers up to $50,000 back on a new condo purchase. Stack that on top of the most buyer-friendly presale conditions Vancouver has seen in years, and the picture looks meaningfully different than it did twelve months ago.

Here’s what you need to know.

The New GST Rebate: What It Is and Why It’s a Big Deal

Bill C-4, the Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act, received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026. Buried inside this legislation is a brand-new GST rebate exclusively for first-time buyers purchasing new or substantially renovated homes, and the numbers are significant.

First-time buyers can now recover 100% of the federal GST on new homes priced up to $1,000,000. The rebate phases out linearly between $1M and $1.5M, reaching zero at the top of that range. In practical terms: buying a new condo at $900,000 means $45,000 back. At $1,000,000, you recover $50,000. That’s not a discount. It’s money back in your pocket on a transaction you were already planning to make.

Presale condos are specifically included. In BC, GST on a new home is the buyer’s responsibility at the time of completion. With this rebate in place, your builder will typically credit the amount back at closing, so you don’t need to chase it yourself. You can also apply directly through CRA My Account or by filing Form GST190 within two years of closing.

The eligibility definition is important to understand. The legislation uses a rolling four-year lookback: if you have not owned and lived in a primary residence anywhere in the world at any point over roughly the past four years, you likely qualify. This is more flexible than many people assume, so it’s worth checking carefully if you’re unsure about your own situation.

Who Qualifies and Who Might Be Surprised to Find They Do

The four-year window is broader than the old first-time buyer definitions many people are used to. If you owned a property years ago but have been renting since, you may qualify. Recent newcomers to Canada who never owned here but owned abroad previously should note that the clock still applies to worldwide ownership, so read the fine print carefully. If you’ve been out of the housing market for a few years for any reason, it’s well worth confirming your eligibility with a real estate lawyer or your lender before assuming you don’t qualify.

What makes this especially relevant to presale buyers is the timing. You sign a presale contract today, your home completes in 2027 or 2028, and the rebate applies at completion, not at signing. That means buyers who are thinking ahead have a window to plan around this.

The Presale Market Right Now: More Buyer-Friendly Than It’s Been in Years

The GST rebate lands in the middle of a presale market that’s already tilted sharply in buyers’ favour. New presale launches across Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley have slowed dramatically. Early 2026 saw only 64 new presale homes come to market in a single month, compared to a normal figure above 1,100 units. Developers who are actively selling are competing hard for a smaller pool of qualified buyers.

The result is an incentive environment that industry observers are describing as the most aggressive since 2018. Developers are offering reduced deposits (some as low as 1%), strata fee coverage, cash credits, assignment clauses, interior customization packages, extra parking, and more. The benchmark condo price in Metro Vancouver has also softened, sitting around $708,000 (down roughly 6.8% from a year ago), with active listings well above the ten-year average.

Lower prices, aggressive developer concessions, and a new federal GST rebate on top create a layered value proposition that hasn’t existed in Vancouver for a long time.

Where to Look: Neighbourhoods and Project Types Worth Watching

The current market has a heavier focus on wood-frame and townhome product compared to the high-rise heavy cycles of years past. This actually suits a lot of first-time buyers who want more space, a suburban feel, or transit-adjacent locations outside the downtown core.

Suburbs well-served by existing or upcoming SkyTrain infrastructure remain particularly compelling for presale buyers thinking about long-term value. Areas near Metrotown in Burnaby, transit corridors in Coquitlam, and established nodes in Richmond and North Vancouver continue to offer new development options at price points that are more accessible than Downtown Vancouver, while still hitting the qualifying threshold for the full GST rebate.

Buyers should also pay attention to projects completing in the 2027-2028 window. The presale market is expected to remain soft through much of 2026, with improved conditions projected further out, which means today’s pricing and incentives may look increasingly attractive in hindsight.

What the Rate Environment Means for Your Planning

The Bank of Canada held its overnight rate at 2.25% at its April 29 announcement, with the next decision scheduled for June 10, 2026. Forward-looking guidance suggests the policy rate is likely to remain broadly stable through this year. For presale buyers, that’s useful: variable rate mortgage costs aren’t expected to spike, and the carry cost of a presale assignment or completion financing is more predictable than it was during the rate volatility of 2022-2023.

Fixed mortgage rates remain influenced by bond markets and those can move, but the current rate environment is meaningfully more stable than it was at the height of the tightening cycle. Presale buyers who are locking in today with a 2027 or 2028 completion have reasonable visibility on the financing landscape.

What This Means for Buyers: Practical Takeaways

The combination of factors right now is genuinely unusual. You have a new federal rebate worth up to $50,000 for first-time buyers, a softened price environment, developers competing aggressively for your business, and a stable rate backdrop. None of these factors is permanent.

If you’re a first-time buyer who has been waiting to get into the market, the practical advice is to get clear on your eligibility for the GST rebate first. It should be one of the first conversations you have with your lender or lawyer. Then start exploring which presale projects fit your timeline and location preferences, because developer incentives are time-sensitive and the project selection available right now may not exist in another year.

If you’re an investor or move-up buyer, the picture is different, but even for non-first-time buyers, the current presale environment offers negotiating leverage and project selection that hasn’t been available since the pre-pandemic years.

Ready to Explore Vancouver Presales?

The market moves faster than most people expect when the fundamentals shift. Right now, the fundamentals for first-time presale buyers in Metro Vancouver are about as favourable as they’ve been in a decade. The right project, at the right price, with the right incentives, is out there.

At Vancouver Dwelling, we track every active presale project across Metro Vancouver and give our VIP clients early access before the general public. If you want to see what’s available and understand exactly how the new GST rebate applies to your situation, register for VIP access at vancouverdwelling.ca.

There’s no cost, no obligation, and no pressure. Just the information you need to make a smart decision.

Jacky, Vancouver Dwelling

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Consult a qualified real estate lawyer or tax professional to confirm your eligibility for the GST rebate.

Explore Further: Ready to act on that opportunity? Browse our Downtown Vancouver presale condos to see what’s currently available, and reach out to get on the VIP list before public launch.

Bank of Canada Holds at 2.25% — What Vancouver Presale Buyers Need to Know Right Now

This morning, the Bank of Canada announced it would hold its overnight lending rate at 2.25%, its fourth consecutive pause since last October. For anyone watching the Vancouver presale condo market, this decision lands at a pivotal moment, and it deserves a closer look than the usual “rates unchanged” headlines suggest.

The short version: variable rates are staying put for now, but fixed rates are quietly creeping up due to global pressures, and the presale landscape in Metro Vancouver is leaner than it’s been in over a decade. That combination creates a specific set of conditions that every presale buyer, whether you’re just researching or already registered for a project, needs to understand heading into spring 2026.

Here’s what the data is telling us and what it means for your decision.

Why the Bank of Canada Held, And Why It’s More Complicated Than It Looks

The BoC’s decision to hold at 2.25% wasn’t a confident “all clear” signal. Policymakers are threading a narrow needle: domestic economic data is soft (BC home sales are projected to fall another 2.1% this year), but renewed inflation pressure from the conflict in Iran has sent global oil prices higher, creating upward pressure on the cost of living. With Canada-US trade negotiations also scheduled for this summer, the Bank signalled it’s in a genuine “wait and see” mode.

Crucially, the Bank’s next rate decision isn’t until June 10. Until then, variable mortgage rates will hold roughly where they are, hovering around 3.4% to 3.85% depending on your lender. That’s still historically reasonable, and for presale buyers with completions scheduled later this year or in 2027, it offers some breathing room.

But here’s the nuance that many buyers are missing.

Fixed Rates Are Moving in the Other Direction

While the BoC holds steady, fixed mortgage rates have been quietly rising. Bond yields, which fixed rates track closely, have climbed in response to the same geopolitical pressures the Bank is monitoring. As of today, five-year fixed rates in BC sit around 4.04%, with three-year fixed rates at approximately 4.30%.

That matters for presale buyers because most people who purchase a new development today won’t be securing their mortgage until completion, which could be one, two, or even three years away. You’re not locking in a rate today. You’re making a purchase decision today and hoping the rate environment is favourable when you close.

If fixed rates continue drifting upward before your completion date, your financing costs will be higher than what today’s rate sheets suggest. This is why stress-testing your presale purchase against a range of rate scenarios, not just today’s, is so important.

The Vancouver Presale Market: Historic Quiet Creates Real Opportunity

Beyond rates, the bigger story for presale buyers right now is how dramatically the supply of new presale launches has contracted. In February 2026, just 64 new presale homes came to market across the entire Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley region. For context, a typical February sees over 1,100 units launch. That’s roughly 6% of historical norms.

The reason is straightforward: developers are cautious. With Metro Vancouver benchmark prices down 6.8% year-over-year (now sitting at $1,104,300), and March 2026 resale volumes running 31.8% below the 10-year average, builders aren’t rushing to launch into soft demand. Many projects have been delayed with no firm timelines, and the developers who are bringing projects to market are increasingly targeting end-users, people who want to live in what they buy, rather than investor purchasers.

The sales-to-active listings ratio across Metro Vancouver is sitting at 14.2%, which firmly places us in buyer’s market territory. Anything below 12% signals a buyer’s market, and we’re not far above that threshold.

What a Thin Presale Market Means for Buyers Who Are Ready

Here’s where the narrative flips in your favour. When the presale market is this quiet, the projects that do launch tend to come with more motivated developers and, increasingly, buyer-friendly terms. We’re seeing more developers offer extended deposit structures, free assignment clauses, capped levies, and enhanced incentive packages, concessions that would have been unthinkable during the 2021–2022 frenzy.

The pool of competing buyers is also smaller. If you were trying to purchase a presale two or three years ago, you were often competing against dozens of registered buyers for a limited allocation. Today, the dynamics have reversed. Developers need qualified, committed buyers, and that gives you negotiating leverage you simply didn’t have before.

For buyers who have pre-approval in hand, a down payment ready, and a clear picture of their completion timeline, this is genuinely one of the better environments in recent memory to purchase a presale, not because prices are at a bottom (no one can promise that), but because the conditions are in your favour as a buyer rather than a seller.

What This Means for Buyers at Different Stages

If you’re still researching: Use this slower period to get thorough. Build out your shortlist of neighbourhoods: areas like North Vancouver, Coquitlam’s Burke Mountain, and Surrey’s Fleetwood corridor continue to see completions this year from major builders including Anthem, Beedie, Polygon, and Concert. Understand your financing capacity at a range of rate scenarios, not just today’s.

If you’re registered for a project launching soon: Pay close attention to the completion timeline and what that means for your rate environment at closing. If fixed rates continue to rise, locking in a rate-hold through a lender early, even before you finalize purchase, can provide valuable insurance.

If you’ve already purchased presale and are awaiting completion: The combination of softening benchmark prices and rising fixed rates is worth discussing with your mortgage broker now. Get clarity on your rate-hold options and what the gap between your contract price and current comparable sales looks like in your specific building and neighbourhood.

The Bigger Picture: Patience Is Being Rewarded

The Vancouver presale market has been through a significant correction. That correction has been uncomfortable for many who bought at the peak, but for buyers entering today, it represents a reset toward more sustainable conditions. Prices are softer, competition is lower, and developers are more flexible than they’ve been in years.

The Bank of Canada’s hold this morning doesn’t change any of that fundamentally. What it does confirm is that we’re not in a rate-cutting environment right now, and that the people who benefit most from the current market are buyers who are well-prepared, not those waiting for a single catalytic moment to trigger action.

Ready to Explore What’s Available?

If you’re considering a Vancouver presale purchase and want VIP access to new project launches before they open to the public, register with Vancouver Dwelling. We work directly with developers across Metro Vancouver to provide early access, floor plan previews, and pricing before public launch, at no cost to buyers.

Have questions about a specific neighbourhood or project? Reach out directly: we’d love to help you navigate the market.

Sources: Bank of Canada (April 29, 2026), BCREA Housing Market Update & Q2 2026 Forecast, Rain City Properties April 2026 Market Snapshot, Daily Hive / Storeys presale launch data, WOWA.ca Vancouver Housing Market, RBC Royal Bank rate update.

Explore Further: With rates on hold, the window to lock in presale pricing is open. Explore presale projects across Metro Vancouver and get in touch for VIP access before public launch.