Court-ordered condominium development sales are on the rise in B.C.’s Fraser Valley and across Metro Vancouver, say Goodman Commercial brokers.

A spate of court-ordered sales has popped up in the Fraser Valley recently, but such cases are occurring across the Lower Mainland, Mark Goodman, the company’s principal, told Connect.

Goodman and colleague Adam Lawrence, who specializes in Fraser Valley land and development project sales, attributed the situation to a case of bad timing. Smaller developers with less experience, capital and land are feeing the effects of high interest rates, the COVID-19 pandemic and market conditions.

“Unfortunately, for many developers, they’ve been caught in this perfect storm,” said Goodman. “And, it’s a tough time.”

Large, veteran developers do not face similar predicaments because the companies have ample supplies of capital and purchased their land before the pandemic at lower prices.

“For the large developers that have owned land for many years, they’re not in the same position,” said Goodman. “Their cost of the land goes back many years. So, they’re not hemorrhaging like many developers are today.”

Goodman Commercial is listing a 2.26-acre condo development site known as the Graham at 204th Street and 70th Avenue in Langley, B.C., for $17.5 million under a court-ordered sale. Plans call for 254 units to be built in a trio of six-storey buildings.

Goodman Commercial is a candidate to list other Fraser Valley condo development projects as part of court-monitored proceedings.

In recent years, said Lawrence, Fraser Valley condo demand increased as homeowners sought newer and larger spaces at lower prices outside of Vancouver’s core areas, prompting developers to make speculative land purchase that drove up prices.

“But now that trend has slowed considerably. … The air has come out of the balloon a little bit, so you’ve got some [developers] that are left holding the bag, that can’t necessarily afford to make the interest payments,” he said.

“If they’re not lucky, then they’ve got a bunch of land at high interest rates that they can’t necessarily get through the entitlement process and get out of in a timely fashion. So, it’s really a bit of a bloodletting that the entire development community has been waiting to see if it started happening. The cracks have now started to appear across Metro {Vancouver], and I think we’re going to see a lot more of these court-ordered sales as things start to improve in the market at the same time.”

Lawrence said projects within the Township of Langley have been particularly affected due to municipal and regional development charge increases. But Mark Goodman said projects in all Lower Mainland markets are being affected as problems that originated six to 18 months ago.

A rash of court-ordered sales is occurring after lenders completed the lengthy process of gaining control of the assets through the courts and buyers awaited court actions that they had anticipated.

“It seems like this is the shoe that everybody’s been waiting to see drop,” said Goodman.

He said his company now receives calls regularly about possible participation in court-ordered sales processes. But he did not hear much about such cases prior to a few years ago.

“If you bought land or you bought property, up until recently, you would generally do very well, because everything was doing well in Vancouver and [the rest of] British Columbia,” he said.

“Now, as a broker, if you’re in a court-ordered business, you’re doing pretty well.”

The Langley property being listed by Goodman Commercial is one of several owned by local firm Quarry Rock Developments.

Quarry Rock has had several projects placed in receivership in recent months, according to multiple published reports.

Pictured: Proposed condominium development project in Langley, B.C., property being listed by Goodman Commercial as part of a court-ordered sales process.

Rendering: Courtesy of Goodman Commercial