As of August 2026, the City of Victoria had 2,734 homes under construction, according to CMHC. Of those, 2,408 were purpose-built rentals, 314 were condominiums and 12 were homeowner units. That works out to nearly nine rental homes for every one you could buy. The towers going up on Yates, Douglas and Government Street will add a lot of apartments to the core over the next few years. Very few of them will ever have a strata title.
For a condo buyer, this changes how to read today's soft market. Resale condos are effectively the only ownership supply in central Victoria, and the new supply that would normally compete with them is mostly being built as rentals. So this fall's slower sales give owner-occupiers leverage on homes that aren't being replaced. Buyers who plan to rent their unit out face a different market, because the new rentals will compete with them for tenants.
The ownership pipeline fits in one table
In February 2026, Citified surveyed active construction in the city centre and found more than 2,300 rental apartments underway. It also found no condominiums under construction downtown. The most recent downtown condo completions dated to 2024. CMHC's August 2026 neighbourhood breakdown does show 158 condo units under construction in its Downtown zone, 16 in James Bay South and 20 in Vic West. The two sources draw their boundaries differently, and CMHC warns that its neighbourhood-level mapping can be off. Either way, the ownership side of the pipeline is small enough to list project by project.
| Project | Location | Homes | Status as last reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaybay, Casman Properties | 515 Rithet Street, James Bay | 16 per the developer | Now selling; a builder-fed listing updated June 2026 shows asking prices from $550,000 to $1,620,180 and estimates move-in for February 2027 |
| 741 Fisgard, Jawl Residential and Tri-Eagle Development | Blanshard at Fisgard | 156 strata units | Rezoning and development permit approved unanimously July 2026; construction could start in 2027 |
| 205 Quebec Street, Mike Geric Construction | James Bay | 108: 97 tower condos and 11 townhomes | Council sent it back for staff review in October 2025 after OCP changes |
| 475 Kingston Street, Alpha Project Developments | James Bay | 60 condos | In planning |
741 Fisgard is the largest strata project on the list. Capital Daily reported that a tower that size usually takes 30 to 36 months to build. If construction starts in 2027, move-ins would land around 2030. Until then, almost every condo for sale in the core will be a resale.
Why developers keep switching to rental
When council approved 741 Fisgard, Councillor Jeremy Caradonna spoke to the imbalance directly:
"There are not a lot of strata developments in progress throughout Victoria right now, as the City has been focusing on approving and building rentals, but these types of residences are also needed."
City approvals are only part of the reason. The economics behind each building lean the same way, and the pieces add up:
- Rental projects can borrow on easier terms. CMHC's Apartment Construction Loan Program offers low-cost financing for rental construction, with loans of up to 100 percent of a project's residential component. In an October 2025 interview with Citified, a Victoria commercial mortgage lender said CMHC's MLI Select program can give rental developers up to 95 percent loan-to-cost and a 50-year amortization. In return, the project has to meet affordability, energy-efficiency and accessibility targets.
- Condo projects can't get financing without presales. The same lender said presales are what unlock construction financing for condos and townhomes. Smaller projects working with credit unions may need 35 to 50 percent of units presold.
- The early presale buyers have largely disappeared. In February 2026, a longtime Victoria presale specialist told Citified that the foreign buyer ban, speculation taxes, the federal anti-flipping rule and the Short-Term Holding Profit Tax pushed out the investor who used to buy early units and help get financing in place.
- New construction can't price at resale levels. He also said resale prices have come down while construction costs have not. Developers can't match the price of comparable older units, and when buyers see little difference, resale usually wins.
Two Victoria projects show what this looks like in practice. Chard Development's 22-storey tower at Douglas and Caledonia was originally approved as a condominium. In 2025 the developer switched it to rental. Mike Geric Construction's 179-unit Tresah West on Speed Avenue was planned as a presale condo project. After construction costs came in more than 30 percent above forecast, it moved to purpose-built rental.
CMHC expects the pattern to continue. Its 2026 outlook says falling condo presales in Victoria and Vancouver have stalled many planned projects, and it expects more postponements or cancellations, with effects lasting into 2027 and 2028.
September's numbers, read against that pipeline
The Victoria Real Estate Board's September 2026 release shows a cooler month for condos. There were 137 condo apartment sales across Greater Victoria, down 11.0 percent from September 2025 and 21.7 percent from August. Across all property types, active listings reached 3,811. The sales-to-active-listings ratio was 14.7 percent, which is below the 17 percent level the board uses to mark a buyer's market. That ratio covers the whole market, not condos alone. Still, it describes the conditions condo buyers are negotiating in.
The price figures point in different directions. In September 2026, the average condo sale price rose 7.6 percent year over year to $605,399, while the median fell 4.1 percent to $517,500. The average went up while the median went down, which suggests more of the month's sales came from higher-priced units even as the typical sale got a little cheaper. The MLS® HPI benchmark for a Core condo apartment, which adjusts for that kind of mix, was $547,800 in September. That's 1.0 percent above a year earlier and down from $553,600 in August.
Put that next to the pipeline. Benchmark prices are roughly flat, sales are slow and inventory is high across the market, so a buyer living in the unit has time and room to negotiate. Meanwhile, CMHC's count shows very little new condo supply on the way to compete with those resale units. Victoria's soft condo market comes from slower demand. Supply isn't the cause. The presale specialist made a similar point in February: Victoria never built the large investor-driven presale pipelines that left Toronto and Vancouver with unsold completed units, so supply and absorption here are more closely matched.
Prices also vary a lot within the core. VREB's September 2026 condo benchmark was $499,000 in its Victoria area and $711,400 in Victoria West. Those two areas sit next to each other, about $200,000 apart.
A unit you plan to rent out faces a different market
Buyers who want a condo as a rental property are looking at the same buildings under different conditions. The rental side of the pipeline is large, and much of it is arriving now:
- 825 Fort, The Salient Group's 119-home building, was 75 percent leased shortly after move-ins began in February 2026.
- Spencer Block, Denciti Development and Nicola Wealth's 278 market rentals on Government Street between Chatham and Herald, was expected to reach occupancy during 2026.
- Parkway, Primex Investments' 103 homes above the restored Wellburn's facade at Pandora and Cook, was due to finish this year.
- Estoya, Aryze Developments' 91-unit tower at Fisgard and Quadra, is expected in 2027.
- 1050 Yates, Chard Development's 483 rentals on the former Pacific Mazda site, could finish as early as 2027 but more likely in 2028.
- Harris Green Village Phase 1, Starlight Investments' roughly 530 homes at Yates and Cook, is targeted for 2029, with later phases planned for the mid-to-late 2030s.
Asking rents have started to ease. Rentals.ca's report on August 2026 listings put Victoria's average one-bedroom asking rent at $1,994, down 3.4 percent from a year earlier, and two-bedrooms at $2,645, down 1.7 percent. In CMHC's 2025 survey, condo apartments being rented out had a vacancy rate of just 0.3 percent, while purpose-built rentals were at 3.3 percent, the highest since 1999. CMHC also found that vacancy among new units in the City of Victoria was higher than in areas outside the city, which it attributed partly to lease-up timing. Those are 2025 survey figures and a separate dataset from the 2026 asking rents, so they show the gap between the two kinds of rental but not this fall's levels. CMHC also expects rental construction to slow in the second half of 2026 because of those higher vacancies and weaker rent growth. That could narrow the wave after the current projects are done.
Frequently asked questions
Will all this rental construction push condo prices down? The sources describe two separate effects. New rentals compete with condo owners who lease out their units, and asking rents eased in August 2026. On the ownership side, the Core condo benchmark was up 1.0 percent year over year in September 2026, with very few new condos coming to compete.
When will the next large batch of new condos reach the core? Based on current reporting, Jaybay's estimated move-in is February 2027, and that's 16 homes. The next sizeable project, 741 Fisgard, may start construction in 2027 and would take about three years to build after that.
Is September's slowdown the start of a trend? One month doesn't establish a trend. Condo sales were up 15.1 percent year over year in August 2026 before falling in September. CMHC will publish September housing starts on October 16.
If you're weighing a resale condo in James Bay, Vic West or downtown, the team at Coastal Living Collective can help you look at the building, the strata and the price the way a long-term owner would. If you already own a condo in the core and want to know how it compares with the few new ownership homes coming, start with a conversation about what your property is worth.
