The Condo Crash

After years of feverish condo flipping, Canada’s housing bubble is bursting. Sales and prices are tumbling, and inventories are swelling. Investors who once saw condos as a quick path to riches are now facing huge losses. Ali Amad dives into how a supposed golden ticket to wealth has become a trap of debt and disappointment.

With years of legal battles ahead, and a small fortune already spent on lawyers’ fees, Tajdin might now be forced to declare bankruptcy. “If I do, it will become nearly impossible to get financing for anything,” he says. “I won’t be able to have a credit card or even make online reservations at a restaurant. It’s like losing the next seven years of my life.”

Tajdin is one of thousands of Canadians who have been caught in the fallout of the country’s collapsing condo market. Many are middle-class buyers who fell victim to the relentless real estate hype machine. They were told that big-city condos were a surefire place to park their money—and they were the biggest losers when the floor dropped out of the market. Since peaking in 2022, condo values in Toronto have plunged by 16.5 per cent and in Vancouver by nine per cent. Those averages mask the much larger losses experienced by would-be investors like Tajdin. Now, many buyers are on the hook for mortgages they can’t secure. Others own condos they can no longer sell, sinking deeper into the red every month as their carrying costs exceed what they can charge in rent. And a growing number are finding themselves on the wrong end of legal action as developers seek to recoup losses by taking legal action against buyers who back out of presale agreements.