One of the most prolific builders of homes in B.C.’s Lower Mainland says buyers won’t be able to sit on the sidelines forever and the company is expecting stronger purchasing activity through 2025. 

It’s partly that expectation that has Polygon selling, and preparing to sell, several towering residential projects in Burnaby’s Metrotown and Brentwood neighbourhoods — and elsewhere throughout the region.

"Last year was a really slow year," Neil Chrystal, Polygon's president and CEO, told RENX. "A lot of buyers moved to the sidelines to watch and wait and see. I think the expectation was for mortgage rates to come down. Mortgage rates have come down."

Moreover, buyers can't sit idle forever regardless of macro conditions.

Life happens, Chrystal said. Young people grow up, get married, get promotions, people move to or from the region. There is always a market for new homes in a city of millions. 

"I do believe that people need to move on with their lives," he said. "I think 2025 will be the year that we maybe look back upon and say it was a time that people wanted to move forward."

Polygon a highrise and lowrise developer

To that end, Polygon, which specializes in concrete tower residential development as well as wood frame, low-rise buildings — sometimes in the same project — is currently selling a pair of towers in Metrotown. 

"Immigration numbers have continued to grow, particularly over the last two years, yet housing starts have kind of plateaued in the last year," Chrystal said. "They've actually gone down about 10 per cent."

The federal government's current immigration plan predicts 673,650 arrivals to Canada this year, including workers, students, temporary foreign workers and other individuals. The target for 2026 is 516,600 and 543,600 for 2027. Many will obviously settle in the Lower Mainland. 

When buyer activity comes back to normal levels it won't take much to start pushing prices up again and shifting the market. 

Chrystal said there has been a lot of uncertainty in recent months circling around interest rates, the economy, political leadership, immigration targets and other factors. 

"That may mean we get off to a slower start as people try to digest that, and what it means for themselves," he said. "But I think after a couple of slower years, I think this year will pick up."

Metrotown, Brentwood pulls in Polygon’s attention

Polygon will be ready and waiting to greet them.

Perla is a 30-storey tower with 335 two- and three-bedroom homes near the Patterson SkyTrain Station in Metrotown. The project also has a six-storey rental component with 118 homes.

"It's a big project. We started selling that one in spring 2023 and we're about 80 per cent sold," Chrystal said, noting the project is expected to complete in summer 2026. 

Onyx, also located at the western side of Metrotown, is a 36-storey building with 260 units, including 48 non-market rental homes in the base of the tower. Polygon started preselling Onyx in October and has sold roughly 80 homes so far, Chrystal said. "So, we’ve still got a little bit of work to do, but so far it’s been going pretty strong in light of market conditions around us."

Chrystal said Metrotown’s connection to mass transit, including the SkyTrain, its proximity to Central Park, and its critical mass of new homes and amenities makes it one of the region’s most attractive neighbourhoods for presale developments. 

Meanwhile, in Brentwood, Polygon earned conditional approval late in 2024 from the city for a multi-phase, four-tower project called Emerald Place that also includes a six-storey wood-frame rental building. Chrystal said the Brentwood project, if fully realized, would total roughly 1,400 condo and rental homes.

"We're hoping to bring that to the market later this year, although we're still going through hoops to get our final approvals."

Potential shift to low-rise in less competitive cities

Founded in 1980, Polygon has built more than 34,000 homes in Greater Vancouver. "We've been active, really, in every municipality," Chrystal said, noting it has built homes as far north as Squamish and as far east as Mission. 

"This year we're sort of ready to start about 2,500 homes, market conditions willing," he said.

"We gravitate to areas such as Coquitlam and Richmond, North Shore, Surrey, Langley," he said, adding many of those communities are growing — especially around transit hubs and new or planned transit lines.

Chrystal said recent density policies by the province to up-zone properties and neighbourhoods around transit lines will spark more competition among land buyers and developers in the coming years. "When you have that competition, it's really hard for everybody to be successful."

That could result in Polygon making a slight adjustment and targeting development sites deeper into their target communities that face a little less competition, he said. 

Another shift could be increasing the amount of low-rise wood frame projects that Polygon undertakes.

"It's cheaper to build, therefore it's more affordable once it's finished,” he said. "That's a niche that I like . . . and it's something that maybe will have a greater focus on this year and moving forward."