Formerly known as Show & Sell, The RAZZ Report breaks down trending real estate topics into four pillars:

🧭 [R]esearch
📊 [A]nalysis
🔎 [Z]oom-In
🌐 [Z]oom-Out

In an effort to understand the market as it is… not as it’s sold.

In the last RAZZ Report, we looked at how resale activity and prices tanked in 2025.

Now we’re turning to the new-build segment, specifically condos, where new condo sales just hit their lowest level since 1991. Let’s take a closer look at the last 5 years.

New Condo Sales - GTA

Yeesh.

After two major peaks in 2017 (31,216 sales) and again in 2021 (30,844 sales), new condo sales fell by roughly 95% by 2025… with the sharpest declines coming from 2023 to 2025.

And even as sales were collapsing, the market was still absorbing a major wave of new supply: roughly 83,000 new condo units reached completion between 2023 and 2025.

And we’ll likely be completing another 22,066 units by the end of 2026.

When we see demand dry up at the same time completions surge, we see pockets of inventory build, buyers gaining leverage, and developers (and their lenders) start asking uncomfortable questions about launches, pricing, timing, and what to do next.

Which also led to a wave of cancelled projects.

Urbanation reported 28 condo projects were cancelled in 2025, effectively removing approximately 7,243 units from the pipeline.

And although there isn’t a clean public “master list” of every cancelled condo project, there were many projects that entered receivership.

Enter The One.

If there’s a project that illustrates how messy pre-construction can get once a mega-development runs into financial trouble, it’s this/the one.

This was a project that initially launched in 2017 and after years of delays and ballooning costs, the project went into receivership in 2023 (the same year it was supposed to be completed).

A part of the receivership process is stabilizing the development and figuring out a path to completion. Tridel took the reigns on the project and as part of the process, the court approved the termination of 314 out of 329 purchase agreements in November 2025.

So a vast majority of buyers lost their units with no recourse. And although they had their deposits returned with interest…

Imagine, for a moment, if even a fraction of that deposit had been invested in NVIDIA…$NVDA ( ▲ 0.93% ).

Now imagine putting that same amount into WeWork.. $WEWKQ ( ▲ 100.0% ).

One would have compounded into a small fortune.

The other would be worthless.

At least with pre-construction, you usually get something at the end. Whether it’s worth more than what you paid for or not. The utility is there.

But that’s the point.

There is no such thing as a risk-free investment. Only different risks and different appetites for them.

The mistake isn’t choosing pre-construction.

The mistake is thinking that it can’t lose.

Pre-construction condo demand in the GTA was built on a simple idea:

Buy today, profit tomorrow

But the model only works when three conditions line up:

1. Prices keep rising,

2. Financing remains cheap, and

3. New supply absorbs smoothly into the market

And I’d say up until 2020 before the world shut down, those conditions held.

But from 2021 - 2025, they broke:

That sequence exposes the real risk in pre-construction:

Uncertainty

When you buy pre-con, you’re signing up for a lot of unknowns:

1) You don’t know when you’re getting it

Delays are the norm in pre-construction. A 5-year plan can quietly become a 7 or 8-year wait for occupancy and then another year before the building is actually registered.

2) You don’t know if you’re getting it at all

Along with the 28 cancellations noted in 2025, mysterious, overnight fires at construction sites can scrap or delay projects altogether.

3) You don’t know what you’re getting

Ceiling heights change. Layouts tighten. Who put that massive pillar there? What closes often looks familiar but different… or needs to get demolished altogether because of all of the structural defects like what happened in Meaford, Ontario. So much for being Mike Holmes Approved…

4) You don’t know what you’re giving up

The opportunity cost is real. Cash tied up in deposits can’t be invested elsewhere, used to buy resale in today’s market, fund a move, travel, start a business, or simply stay flexible. That trade-off only becomes obvious in hindsight.

5) Life changes fast

Between signing day and occupancy, a lot can change… Job changes, job loss, relocations, new relationships, ending relationships, health scares, WFH mandates, RTO mandates, appraisal shortfalls, interest-rate shocks, and the list goes on.

What starts as a “quick-flip” slowly turns into:

“Wait, I have to pay how much in occupancy fees?”

“And those don’t go towards my mortgage?”

“And I’m paying HOW MUCH in closing costs?!”

Somewhere along the way, this deal that once looked clean and straightforward becomes something else entirely.

Many buyers who entered pre-con as end-users or flippers never planned on becoming landlords, either.

But in 2025, that’s exactly where a lot of them landed.

Let’s Zoom-In on the City of Vaughan for a moment.

A quick scan of the MLS shows 598 active condo lease listings across the city.

More than half of that supply (375 units) is concentrated in the Highway 7 and Jane area, by the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

When we take a closer look, Festival Condos now accounts for nearly 30% of all active condo lease listings in the City of Vaughan.

We can’t say with certainty whether individual owners are cash-flow positive. But a quick look at the numbers tells a pretty clear story.

Recent one-bedroom rents are hovering around ~$1,800 per month.

From that, you’re immediately subtracting roughly ~$600 per month for maintenance fees and property taxes. That leaves about $1,200 to service the mortgage.

At the time of launch, this project was advertising 1-bedroom units in the $500,000s.

At today’s interest rates, even with a 20% down payment, a buyer would need a purchase price closer to $300,000 just to break-even.

And that’s before factoring in:

In other words, many of these units aren’t being leased because the numbers work… they’re being leased because selling doesn’t. It’s the exit strategy that most buyers weren’t planning for.

But what we’re seeing in Vaughan (and other pockets of the GTA) isn’t an isolated problem. It’s a downstream effect.

When resale exits don’t work and rental markets get saturated, pressure doesn’t disappear. It travels up the supply chain, right back to the developers.

And when developers feel that pressure, they come up with new incentives to bring buyers back.

When we Zoom-Out, we see developers shifting from “price cuts” (save that for the assignment market) and into “can’t-lose” programs

Enter Mattamy’s New Home Price Protection Program.

Instead of advertising straight discounts, developers are packaging offers as confidence programs… price protection, capped downside, closing credits, extended deposits… anything that makes the decision to buy a floorplan feel safer.

In plain terms, Mattamy’s program is positioned as: buy now, and if our base price drops later, you’re protected. Whether the credit ever triggers depends on the details… comparison models, timing, eligibility, discretion, etc. One line in their terms makes that crystal clear:

Translation: if you’re relying on “price protection,” you should be tracking pricing and inventory actively as you approach occupancy/closing. Don’t expect the sales center to call you in a panic to make sure you don’t miss out on saving some cash!

To be clear: I like pre‑con and I love me some alliteration. This isn’t a knock on Mattamy or an ad for them. Mattamy is a world class company and one of the few reputable builders that can offer a program like this.

This price protection program is an example of the kinds of strategies developers are using right now.

And the strategy is the real signal here.

Developers are trying to keep buyers moving forward by selling certainty in a world full of so much uncertainty.

That wraps up RAZZ Report #2.

And nearly the first month of 2026…

If you missed the newsletter formerly known as Show & Sell, you’re officially caught up for the month!

I’m always looking to make this sharper and more useful, so if you’ve got feedback or topics you’re curious about, send them my way.

And if you know someone who’d enjoy The RAZZ Report, forward it along. Best compliment in the world: “You should read and subscribe to this”

Best,

Jordan Buttarazzi