Ottawa and B.C. are bailing out condo developers, not buyers

• Marc Lee says buying more than a third of unsold condo inventory puts a floor on falling prices and has 'all the marks of a bailout.'

  He's right. If prices were dropping naturally, that signals the market doesn't want these units at current levels. Propping them up isn't affordability, it's market manipulation.

• Even at a discount, remaining units could still cost over $600,000, affordable to only a small portion of B.C.'s population.

  This exposes the core problem. Without deeper discounts, the program helps no one most British Columbians actually need. The governments can't force developers to take massive losses.

• Steve Saretsky says banks are 'dramatically exposed' because developers can't sell inventory and may not repay construction loans.

  This is the real story. Banks backed developers betting on rising prices. Now they're stuck holding bad loans. The condo buyback is a backdoor bank rescue.

• The announcement came as a bare line in June, with details scrambled together a week later, per Marc Lee.

  The bungled rollout suggests this wasn't planned as a genuine housing solution. It feels like damage control after pressure from developers or lenders.

“It puts a floor on the prices of those condos.”