Toronto developers are quietly cancelling condos. For the first time, the Star has mapped the extent of the crisis

But after a breakdown in its business partnership and financial difficulty with its lenders, Condoman Developments had to cancel the project in the summer of 2024. 

Howard Youhanan, president of the company, told the Star the deposits were returned to the buyers, “who were very nice about it.”

“I felt bad I couldn’t go ahead with the project,” he added. 

The site was put up for sale and recently bought by another developer, commercial real estate firm Colliers, which handled the transaction, confirmed to the Star.

But the completion date is still unknown.

The View is just one of at least a dozen condo projects in Toronto that have either gone into receivership, been cancelled or converted to rentals since the start of 2024, as tanking sales and rising costs put the brakes on new developments.

Often developers quietly pull the plug on these buildings, and the public doesn’t know where they are.

Until now.

The Star has compiled an exclusive map of the projects, revealing for the first time in one place the scope of the preconstruction condo crisis. The projects span the city, with a cluster of impacted sites downtown.

The map helps neighbours understand the fate of vacant sites on their blocks; and it informs buyers which developers have encountered pitfalls.

It will be updated as more projects become known.

Elevated construction and materials costs, labour shortages and high interest rates have devastated the preconstruction homebuilding market, with dozens of builders owing millions to their creditors.

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), which used data from Altus Group, there has been a fivefold increase in the number of condos cancelled in Toronto from 2022 to 2025.

The trend is jeopardizing thousands of units, raising concerns about long-term supply, and tying up the deposits of many buyers who are uncertain if their homes will be built.

In some cases it’s leaving communities with massive empty sites for years, and hurting the appeal of neighbourhoods.

“We are definitely experiencing a correction in the market,” said Tania Bourassa-Ochoa, the CMHC’s deputy chief economist.

“We’re seeing that with the fall in prices, with the inventory that’s piling up. The sales are dropping quite significantly.”

What goes up must come down?

For years cranes have dotted the sky in Toronto, with condos — and their prices — going up at record speed.

Bourassa-Ochoa said the condo market has been “investor driven,” particularly in preconstruction. 

During the pandemic, interest rates hit historic lows and preconstruction prices shot up, with increasing values triggering a surge in demand.

But now that interest rates are higher “the math all of a sudden doesn’t work” for buyers, Bourassa-Ochoa said.

This has led the entire condo market to falter, as investors try to off-load units all at once. 

Total condo sales fell by 75 per cent from 2022 to the first quarter of 2025, according to data from market research firm Urbanation, and the average resale condo price dipped by 13 per cent.

But the preconstruction market has been hit the hardest.

It would take 58 months to sell off all of the available inventory of preconstruction condos at the current rate of sales.

While some buyers have had trouble closing on units that are worth less when finished than they originally agreed to pay for them, developers are also under strain as they need to pre-sell about 70 per cent of units to get financing.

Receiverships on the rise

Every week, commercial real estate firm CBRE’s land services group — which deals in the disposition (selling, leasing or transferring ownership) and acquisition of development land — receives multiple calls from developers whose sites have gone into receivership, desperate to sell off their projects.

“The number of calls we get from receivers is increasing,” said vice-chairman Mike Czestochowski.

When a builder defaults on a loan and cannot refinance the loan, the lender can apply to the courts to put the property into receivership, said Bryan A. Tannenbaum, managing director of TDB Restructuring, a Toronto-based firm that has acted as the court-appointed receiver for multiple real estate projects.

The court then appoints a receiver, who can either sell the property or finish the project themselves to realize the profit and returns for the creditors, he added.

If the receiver terminates the condo project, buyer deposits, which are held in trust by the developer’s law firm, are returned, Tannenbaum said.

Many of the calls CBRE receives deal with first-time developers who overextended themselves, Czestochowski said.

Compared to lowrise buildings, highrise condos take more time to build (on average around five years) and have higher levels of capital that remain in the project for longer, making them a riskier financial venture, he added.

While trouble at one development site may not indicate the developer’s other sites are in peril, it’s still important for the public to know which developers are facing the greatest financial difficulties to inform preconstruction buyers’ decision making before purchase, experts say. 

Empty eyesores for years 

When a project goes into receivership, the sales process may take at least six months, Tannenbaum said.

But sometimes it can take longer.

Typically, big players in the private development space will buy or acquire the ailing site — but it has to be priced appropriately, Czestochowski said.

The real estate market is in a down cycle, making buyers more cautious, and if the asset isn’t priced right it can sit for a long time.

At the end of the day, it depends on how attractive the site is to buyers. Typically, bigger projects in Toronto will find buyers, whereas land in a smaller community may not attract the same interest, or sell as quickly, Tannenbaum said.

Having vacant lots for years can hurt the curb appeal and vibrancy of neighbourhoods, experts say.

It can also be devastating for the small businesses and homes that are demolished to make way for new projects that then end up not materializing for a long time.

The Big Pivot

Sometimes, developers can salvage a condo by converting it to rental. 

Graywood Developments, a Toronto-based investment management and real estate developer, planned a 53-storey Church-Yonge tower called Centricity Condos, launching sales in January 2023.

But by September of the following year, facing challenging “headwinds” — particularly, higher interest rates — it was becoming clear they wouldn’t hit their sales target, said senior vice-president Neil Pattison.

Out of about 600 units, they had only sold 200.

They began “repurposing the working drawings,” adding more kitchen cabinets and taking out second bathrooms in the one-bedroom units to “let the spaces breathe a little bit more,” Pattison said. 

They added a penthouse gym with a panoramic view of downtown, a coworking space and a children’s playroom.

All amenities designed to get residents to hang out and talk to their neighbours.

Unlike a condo, everyone interested in the building would be living there. “You’re selling the dream every time you open that door on the rental tour,” Pattison explained.

When they cancelled the condo project in October of 2024 in favour of rentals, they braced for anger from purchasers. Instead Pattison said they found some relief, as the market had changed and it was likely their units would have been worth less than they bought them for.

All of the deposits have been returned, plus interest, he said, and the new rental building is estimated to be completed in 2028.

But not every developer can pull this off.

The challenge, said Pattison, is finding capital without getting it from preconstruction buyers — typically, he said, about 15 per cent comes from them.

Even though condo starts will slow down, immigrants are still coming to Canada and they will need places to live, he said.

“Developers like us are cancelling condominiums,” Pattison added — a huge concern for future supply. 

“That means by the time we get to 2028 you’re not going to have condominiums completed.”