Is the Vancouver Condo Market Crashing? What the Numbers Show in October 2026

A typical condo in Greater Vancouver costs about $95,000 less than it did in March 2024. GVR's apartment benchmark was $777,500 then. In September 2026 it was $682,500, down 12.2%, and 11.1% lower than three years ago.

Is it a crash? Monthly moves are small, around half a per cent, so it never feels like one. But TD Economics says this is on track to be the deepest condo correction since at least 2005. It's a slide that has paused only once in 13 months, sitting on top of a record pile of unsold new condos (CMHC's word), and a rental market that no longer pays an investor's mortgage. That combination matters more than the headline number, so here's all of it: resale prices, unsold inventory, the presale freeze, rents, the policy decisions coming, and what I'd do in each seat at the table.

Prices: down 11% in three years

The benchmark fell in 12 of the last 13 months. February was the only uptick, at half a per cent. GVR's own index puts apartments down 11.1% over three years, roughly flat over five (+0.3%) and up 36.8% over ten. So anyone who bought before 2017 is still well ahead, a 2021 buyer is about back where they started, and most people who bought in the last three years are below their purchase price on paper, before counting the cost of selling.

Source: Greater Vancouver Realtors, September 2026 stats package.

Of the areas in the table, Richmond (−9.1%), Port Coquitlam (−9.0%) and Burnaby South (−8.3%) fell the most, and North Vancouver (−3.2%) and Maple Ridge (−2.6%) held up best. (Smaller markets swing more: Tsawwassen apartments are down 12.2% and Ladner 10.5%.) Richmond and Burnaby also hold nearly half of the region's unsold new condos, which I get to below. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Who stopped buying

Detached and attached sales were up a little from last September. Condo sales were down almost a fifth. GVR's chief economist said the market is being carried by end users while investor demand waits on the sidelines, and the presale data says the same thing louder. Rennie reported that investors were about 50% of its presale buyers from 2020 to 2023, 25% in 2024, and 7% in 2025 up to the spring.

That matters because a third of this region's condos are rentals. CMHC counted 107,192 of 316,469 condo apartments in the Vancouver area as rented out in October 2025, or 33.9%. When half of presale buyers were investors, and renting a condo out stopped making money, the buyer that built the market simply left.

The unsold condo pile

CMHC tracks condos that are built, finished and still unsold. In May 2026 Metro Vancouver had 4,376 of them, up from 2,488 a year earlier and 1,262 in May 2024. A CMHC economist called it a record. That's more than three times the count of two years ago.

Burnaby, Richmond and Coquitlam alone hold about 63% of it. And it's growing: by August, CMHC data showed 814 unsold completed condos in Coquitlam alone, up from 412 a year earlier.

The price mix is the part most people miss. By CCPA's reading of the CMHC data, 35% of the unsold units are asking over $1 million, and only 8% are under $600,000. The glut isn't starter condos. It's mostly pricier units: 58% are listed above $800,000. Under $600,000 there are few unsold new units, though resale supply at that price is deep in places like Whalley (more on that below).

Where resale condos are sitting

The new-build pile sits on top of the resale listings. Here's what the live condo listings on EstateBlock showed on October 10, 2026: how many are for sale, the median asking price, asking price per square foot, and how long the median listing has been up. These are asking prices, not sale prices.

Source: EstateBlock.com live listings, snapshot October 10, 2026 (active condo listings, asking prices).

Whalley, Surrey's City Centre, has 563 condos listed, and the median one has been up for 74 days. Brighouse, Richmond's City Centre, has 466 at a median of 79 days. Compare that with Lower Lonsdale (27 days) or Mount Pleasant (23 days). Same market, very different negotiating positions.

The towers around SkyTrain stations in Brentwood (331 listed), Metrotown (315) and Coquitlam West (312) are where resale sellers compete directly with developers' unsold units. If you're selling a condo in one of those neighbourhoods, your competition includes brand-new units with incentives attached. You can browse them by neighbourhood on EstateBlock: Whalley, Brighouse, Brentwood, Metrotown.

Presales: the market that stopped

MLA Canada counted 60 presale launches and fewer than 4,800 units released in all of 2025, with about 30% of them sold. In August 2026 there were 2 launches in all of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, 76 homes in total, with about 3% sold early. The first concrete presale launch of 2026 didn't happen until May. The only bright spot was townhomes: July's three launches were all townhouse projects, and half the units sold in the first month.

When presales don't sell, towers don't get financed, and some that were already under way are now in court:

The assignment market tells the same story. Listings of presale assignments on the MLS in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley dropped from 462 in April 2024 to 90 by the end of January 2026, according to housing analyst Steve Saretsky. One big-bank lender he spoke to said appraisals on completing presales were coming in 10% to 30% below the contract price. That's one lender's account, not a statistic, but it explains why so few buyers are trying to sell their contracts: there's nobody to sell to at the old price.

The Lumina Eclipse ruling is worth knowing about if you hold a presale. In August, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled 39 presale contracts in that project unenforceable against the buyers, because the developer hadn't amended its disclosure statement when material facts changed. So those buyers can walk away. The court hasn't yet decided whether their deposits, mostly already spent on construction, come back, and the ruling may be appealed. Disclosure statements filed since April 1, 2025 must also include a plain-language summary of presale risks and buyer rights. Read yours.

Rents and the investor math

Rents peaked in 2023 and have been falling since. Rentals.ca puts Vancouver's average asking rent at $2,741 in September 2026, down 1.3% in a year, and the average one-bedroom at $2,380, down 4.8%. liv.rent, which samples different listings, has Metro Vancouver unfurnished one-bedrooms at $2,083 in October, down 6.3%. B.C.'s housing ministry says purpose-built rents in Vancouver are 19% below their July 2023 peak.

Vacancy is the other half. CMHC's 2025 survey put Vancouver's purpose-built vacancy rate at 3.7%, the highest since 1988. Rented condos were at 1.5%, up from 0.8% a year before.

Here's the math that broke the investor market, using today's numbers. Buy a condo at the Greater Vancouver benchmark price with 20% down and a 5-year fixed at 5.09% (nesto's listed uninsured rate on October 9; rental properties often price higher). The payment is about $3,204 a month over 25 years, and roughly $2,292 of the first payment is pure interest. The average asking rent in the City of Vancouver is $2,741. You're about $463 a month short before strata fees, property tax, insurance and any vacant month. Part of each payment is principal, so it isn't all lost, but it is cash out of your pocket every month.

This is a simplified example. Your unit, rent and rate will differ, and a bigger down payment changes it. But the direction doesn't change: at current prices and rents, a typical leveraged condo purchase is cash-flow negative every month and depends on the price going up. With prices going down, that's why the investor buyer has disappeared.

Supply: a record year, then a cliff

Sources: Statistics Canada/CMHC completions table, CMHC housing starts, August 2026, CMHC Housing Supply Report, fall 2026.

This is the part of the story that cuts the other way. 2025 delivered more finished homes than any year on record, most of them apartments started years earlier. That wave is still landing. But new condo starts have collapsed, and most of what does start now is purpose-built rental. Today's glut was locked in years ago. CMHC warns that today's low condo starts will likely mean fewer completions and more competition for buyers later. TD's economists expect prices to stabilize in 2027. Nobody can tell you the month, but the new-condo pipeline behind this wave is thin.

What could turn it

• The foreign-buyer ban. Ottawa's ban on non-Canadians buying homes expires January 1, 2027. On October 7, the finance minister said the government is looking at all options. Developers have argued the ban cuts off a source of capital, and one option discussed is allowing foreign purchases of new builds only. If that happens, it lands squarely on the unsold inventory above.
• Government buying unsold condos. In June, Canada and B.C. announced a program to turn more than 2,200 vacant condos into affordable rent-to-own homes. Canadian Press reported potential spending of about $1.45 billion. As of the latest reports I could find, no purchases had been announced.
• The first-time buyer GST rebate. First-time buyers of a new home up to $1 million get the full 5% GST back (up to $50,000), phasing out to zero at $1.5 million. On a completed, unsold $800,000 condo, that's up to $40,000, if you buy from the builder as your home and you're the first person to live in it. It's the single biggest tool a first-time buyer has right now, and it applies to new (or substantially renovated) homes only.
• Interest rates. The Bank of Canada is at 2.25% and decides next on October 28.
• Taxes going the other way. For 2026, B.C.'s speculation and vacancy tax rose to 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents (from 0.5%) and 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners (from 2%), and the foreign rate goes to 4% in 2027. The B.C. home flipping tax is 20% of net profit on a sale within 365 days, shrinking to zero at two years. It applies to presale assignments, with no primary-residence deduction.

TD Economics, in June, forecast condo prices falling 7% to 8% over 2026 and about 15% from their 2023 peak by mid-2027, before stabilizing and staying above pre-pandemic levels. TD dates that peak to October 2023, when GVR's apartment benchmark was $770,200; today's price is 11.4% below it. Treat any forecast as a scenario, not a schedule.

Should you buy a condo now?

Tax rules and rebates depend on your situation; confirm the GST rebate, flipping tax and speculation tax details with an accountant or lawyer before you rely on them.