Condo and office towers line the downtown skyline with the north shore mountains in the distance, in Vancouver, on Friday, July 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
By The Canadian Press
Jun 25, 2026 | 3:25 PM
VICTORIA — British Columbia Premier David Eby says a joint federal-B.C. plan to buy unsold condominiums won’t be a bailout for Vancouver developers, but there’s now an opportunity for the government to purchase empty homes in other places for less than it would cost to build them.
Eby says the Vancouver condo market and its glut of unsold units will ultimately correct itself and the proposed program won’t assist developers in that city because “the numbers don’t work there.”
He and Prime Minister Mark Carney jointly announced the plan to potentially help finance the purchase of 2,200 empty B.C. condos last week, and to make them available to the public under a rent-to-buy scheme.
He says the “plot has been lost” over the past week in the absence of details, but there are purchase opportunities south of the Fraser River, as well as on Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan.