Canadian real estate went from a speculative asset with global demand to a glut in just a few years. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data shows completed and unabsorbed inventory rose in April. Builders are now sitting on the most completed and unsold new homes in the country’s history—and there’s a lot more supply in the pipeline.
What Are Completed & Unabsorbed New Homes?
Completed and unabsorbed homes are exactly what they sound like—finished homes that haven’t sold. These homes are sitting on developer books awaiting a bailout buyer, and are ready for immediate occupancy. Today’s data also only includes the units in the country’s census metropolitan areas (CMA), the country’s largest economic regions. That means there’s more supply in rural areas, and this data will skew towards condo apartments.
Unabsorbed inventory isn’t usually very common in Canada due to how the industry works. Most new homes sell in pre-construction, with lenders often requiring at least 80% pre-sold before releasing funds to build. This helps limit financing risks, and less risk means lower construction costs.
Canadian Builders Set A New Record For Completed & Unsold Homes
Canada just set a new record for unsold new homes. Unabsorbed inventory climbed 1.5% to 19,536 homes in April, 36% (+5,176 homes) more than a year ago. It worked out to more than triple the record low in May 2022, when a combination of low rates and limited building capacity created a squeeze.
For those who don’t look at housing ledgers for fun, you may need a little context to appreciate this scale. For every new home delivered in April, there were 2.7 new homes completed and sitting vacant. It’s also equivalent to 1 new home sitting empty for every 5.3 people the population declined by in Q1. Canada has never seen anything like this in history—not even during its most extreme real estate crashes in the 80s and 90s.
This isn’t just a condo glut either. There were 7,866 unabsorbed condos, up 36% from last year. It was the largest segment of unsold homes with massive growth, but it only represents 2 in 5. It’s also worth emphasizing that the CMHC only publishes unsold inventory in CMAs, which skews towards multi-family condo apartments.
More On The Way? A Record of New Homes Under Construction
Canadians may see this number rise even higher in the coming months. These are just units completed and for sale. There were 357,082 homes under construction in Q1 2026. A good chunk of those are state-backed, for-profit, purpose-built rental units, competing with secondary-market investors, who represent the majority of new construction demand in major cities.
Then there’s the glut of new homes that are sold, but are still looking for a buyer. The largest group of pre-construction buyers was investors, often looking to flip before construction finishes. The high-leverage play that printed profits didn’t even require a mortgage qualification. It worked—until it didn’t. Now those speculators are increasingly finding themselves forced to close on a cashflow negative condo, and struggling to attract buyers even with a significant discount.
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