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.