Record-high unsold condos pile up across Metro Vancouver
Nearly 4,400 completed apartments sit unabsorbed in the Vancouver region, up 76% in a year as supply outpaces demand.
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Metro Vancouver is facing a historic condo glut. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported 4,376 completed and unabsorbed condo apartments in the Vancouver census metropolitan area in May 2026 — a 76 percent jump from 2,488 a year earlier.
Unabsorbed units are completed buildings or apartments that remain unsold or unleased. This includes units switched from sale to rental, presales that didn't close, or homes held back by developers waiting for better market conditions.
CMHC economist Shiva Moshtari Doust called the surge "record-high numbers." The spike stems from a collision of factors: a wave of housing starts from years past are now completing, population growth has slowed, buyer confidence is low, and higher interest rates have made financing more expensive. "Supply is high and demand is low," Moshtari Doust said.
Parallel data from Rennie and platform Zonda Home show 3,945 completed and unsold homes at the end of Q1 2026, up from 3,472 at the end of 2025. Rennie's chief economist Ryan Berlin warns that if recent trends continue, unsold inventory could reach 5,000 by 2030 — not a doomsday scenario, he said, but a reflection of reality: thousands of homes will complete over the next four years while market absorption remains uncertain.
Burnaby and Richmond account for nearly half of all unabsorbed units. One wild card: "take-out buyers" — funds or developers purchasing unsold inventory in bulk and pulling it off the market or converting it to rental. Berlin noted this has begun in Toronto but hasn't happened at scale in Vancouver yet.