Condo developers are having a tougher time moving units in Toronto than ever as the market for the housing type completely flops, pushing some to offer desperate incentives or even halt new builds.

One indication of the troubling landscape — prompted by high interest rates and a general lack of affordability as home prices refuse to fall — is the fact that a staggering number of residential projects have gone into receivership, with the massive firms behind them unable to keep up with the debts of construction.

Go beyond the cost and look at the quality. A 450 sqft box with no kitchen and unworkable space isn’t worth the money

— 🇨🇦 (@brandok991) April 23, 2024

The latest of these are two new communities that were on the way for Brampton from the same company, local developer Maplequest Ventures Inc.

The developer, behind projects at the addresses of 10475 Heritage Road and 11258 Torbram Road in the GTA city, allegedly owes nearly $90 million it had secured from lenders and has now defaulted on paying back — lenders who just had the properties put under the power of a court-ordered receiver to try and recover their funds.

Because of the decision, two more neighbourhoods in progress, these ones in Caledon, are now also under receivership, their developer (Digram Developments Caledon Inc.) having served as a guarantor for Maplequest in the case of the above debts.

As Storeys writes, the receiver of all the sites involved can now "move forward with the properties as they see fit," which could mean selling them off, putting the timeline and general fate of the thousands of homes up in the air for those who have already put down deposits and are waiting to move in.

This is all wrong. Where is the oversite?@fordnation@oliviachow
Too many condos are on the market, and they are not selling. What the population needs should be the goal.https://t.co/chNy14A1m1

— Kim Draskovic (@kimdraskovic) June 13, 2024

This has also been the case for three condo projects in downtown Toronto (including the famous The One at Yonge and Bloor), a residential build in Vaughan, another in Ajax, in Barrie, Peterborough, Kitchener, Mississauga, a mall in Markham, and more in the last few months.

At the same time, inventory levels of homes for sale have reached record highs and properties are sitting on the market for way longer, indicating that the region's "housing crisis" is more about price than a lack of supply.