B.C. Foreclosures Rising as Higher Mortgage Payments Kick In
The number of court-ordered sales in Metro Vancouver is jumping, and may continue to grow as a mortgage renewal wave hits Canada five years after the pandemic-era real estate frenzy.
Court-ordered inventory, while less than one per cent of the market, totalled 119 properties in the Vancouver region in October 2025, compared with 66 in October 2024 and 28 in October 2023, according to real estate website Zealty.ca (Zealty Online Search Inc.).
Foreclosures are becoming more frequent because home prices are correcting, unemployment is rising and people who bought during the pandemic are having to renew their mortgages at higher interest rates, said Adam Major, managing broker with Sechelt-based Holywell Properties.
There was a massive increase in home sales from late 2020 through 2022, he said.
“This was the height of COVID craziness when [Bank of Canada governor] Tiff Macklem promised rates would stay low forever, the government was sending everyone free money and we all wanted a bigger house to work from home in,” he said.
Those homes were financed at rock-bottom interest rates, with the central bank’s policy rate sitting at 0.25 per cent from March 2020 to March 2022. Because Canadian banks generally offer maximum terms of five years, it’s now time for many to pay the piper—at interest rates higher than what some can afford.
“It is definitely a bad sign for the market as we are only at the beginning of the big mortgage renewal wave,” Major said.
The most sales ever in a month in the region were the 5,715 sales in March 2021, he said.
“Those buyers will have to renew this coming March. The number of renewals will stay elevated for a year after that. The average discount mortgage rate in March 2021 was 1.69 per cent versus about 3.79 per cent now, so almost everyone who bought in 2021 and 2022 will be paying significantly more on renewal,” he said.
