In Toronto condo land, the investor buyer has left the building

As sales of new preconstruction condominiums have fallen to multidecade lows, more developers are turning away from the sugar high of investor-purchasers and rediscovering “end-users”: otherwise known as people who intend to live in the condo they buy.

But as real estate developers and sales consultants are finding out, appealing to those who want to live in a condominium requires very different buildings and very different sales techniques than the kind that have dominated the Canadian condo landscape over the last decade.