Is Now a Good Time to Buy Presale in BC?

What the market actually looks like right now

Metro Vancouver saw the fewest new multi-family home transactions in 2025 going back to at least 2012. Fewer than 6,000 sales, against an annual average of over 15,000 for the prior decade. Presale launches dried up. Developers pulled back. Investors — who used to absorb a large share of new condo inventory — largely disappeared after the flipping tax and speculation tax changes made the math not work.

The result is a market that looks very different from what buyers experienced through most of the 2010s. Inventory is up. Developers are competing for buyers. Incentives — reduced deposits, price cuts, free upgrades, assignment allowances — are common in a way they haven't been in years. And prices on near-completion inventory have pulled back from their 2022 peaks.

For end users and first-time buyers, that's good news. The market has shifted in your favor.

The supply argument for buying now

Here's the thing about a construction slowdown: the effects are delayed. A presale signed today won't complete until 2028 or 2029. And the projects that didn't launch in 2024 and 2025 won't be completing in 2027 and 2028. That supply gap is coming.

Metro Vancouver is still growing. Population pressure hasn't gone away. The rental market is still tight. And the pace of new project launches in 2025 was the lowest in years — meaning the pipeline of future completions is thin. Buyers who secure a unit now at today's softer pricing are locking in before that supply shortage becomes visible in the market again.

This is a long-term argument, not a short-term one. If you're buying to live there for 5+ years, the near-term price movements matter less than the structural supply dynamics that will play out over the next decade.

The deals that actually exist right now

Near-completion inventory — buildings finishing in 2025 and 2026 — is where the most interesting value is sitting. Developers with unsold units are motivated. You can sometimes negotiate price, deposit structure, upgrades, and assignment rights in ways that weren't possible in a seller's market.

New launches, when they happen, are mostly smaller wood-frame projects in suburban markets like Surrey, Langley, and Abbotsford. Concrete highrise launches in Vancouver proper are rare right now — and the ones that do come to market often come with better incentives than anything that launched in 2021 or 2022.

First-time buyers have an additional advantage: the new GST rebate and PTT exemptions that didn't exist a couple of years ago. On a qualifying purchase, the combined savings can be $50,000 or more. Read the full breakdown in the GST rebate guide.

What to be cautious about

Not every project is a good deal just because the market is soft. Developer track record matters more than ever when launches are fewer and construction financing is tighter. A presale from a developer who hasn't completed a BC project before, on a building that hasn't broken ground, carries real completion risk in this environment.

Financing at completion is still the biggest individual risk for buyers. Rates have come down from their peaks but they're not at the historic lows of 2020 and 2021. If you're stretching to qualify, stress-test your numbers at a rate 2% higher than today's before you sign anything. Your mortgage will be approved at completion, not at signing — and a lot can change in 2 to 3 years.

And timing your life around a presale is genuinely hard. Completion dates move. Plan for it.

The honest take

Nobody can tell you exactly when the market will turn. Anyone who claims otherwise is selling something. What we can say is that buyers today have more choices, more negotiating power, and more government programs working in their favor than at any point in recent memory. The structural case for Metro Vancouver real estate over the long term hasn't changed.

If you're an end user — buying a place to live for the next 5 to 10 years — the question isn't really whether prices will be higher or lower six months from now. It's whether the home fits your life and whether you can comfortably carry it. If the answer to both is yes, waiting for the perfect moment is usually just a way to keep renting.