I did something last Thursday that I hardly ever do. I devoted an entire day to listening. It helped that there were so many great speakers at the Land &Development Conference held in Toronto. 

One of the sessions I sat in on was called “Facts and Fallacies of the Condo Market: Overbuilt or right on target?” As revealed by Jasmine Cracknell, an Associate with N. Barry Lyon Consultants, there are 353 condo projects on the market in the GTA with 13 projects launched in March alone. While that may sound like a lot, Cracknell says they are absorbing at a good, rate, a fact confirmed by George Carras, President of RealNet Canada Inc., who lead-off the program detailing how high-rise inventories have dropped 28 per cent even with all the new projects coming on stream.

Jim Ritchie, Sr. VP of Sales & Marketing for Tridel, knows the condo market inside out and says the market is 50 per cent first-time buyers, 25 per cent empty-nesters, and 25 per cent move-up condo buyers (definitely a story for another day) while one-third of the buyer universe is single females.

Ritchie makes the interesting point that many first-time buyers are entering the condo market from the resale side, buying newly completed units from investors who could wait out the 24-36 months build-out period. Of course, many other investors are renting their units out, and that’s  a very good thing because as Cracknell revealed, the vacancy rate in new condos is a meager 1.6 per cent.

Everything I heard at this session confirmed my view that the condo market is not over-supplied because the rental apartment is grossly under-supplied.

Stephen Dupuis is the President and CEO of the Building Industry & Land Development Association.