A struggling high-rise condo market in southern Ontario led Toronto-based broker and marketing advisor Rare Real Estate to pivot toward low-rise preconstruction sales, where it has topped the $500-million milestone in its first year.

Founded in early 2021 amid the COVID pandemic, Rare started by serving high-rise clients. But when the alarm bells started ringing around two years ago that the market was in trouble — from plummeting new condo sales in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the end of the condo “frenzy” — it turned more to the low-rise sector.

“We can still serve our high-rise clients in a very effective way,” Ryan Rabinovich, co-founder of Rare, told RENX Homes in an interview, “but we also want to now provide a similar level of strategic and tactical service to low-rise developers who are struggling where sales are slow.”

Since it began the low-rise preconstruction and marketing advisory division in 2024, Rare has surpassed $500 million in contracted new home development sites across southern Ontario, servicing primarily projects around the GTA. During the period it also registered sales of over 130 homes valued from $800,000 to almost $3 million, primarily a mix of detached homes and townhomes.

Maximizing value for clients, he said, was instrumental to carving out its path.

Turning to low-rise preconstruction sales

Rare’s co-founders are Rabinovich, who was formerly president and managing partner of preconstruction sales at PSR Brokerage, and Adam Stern, also a former president and managing partner at PSR.

The unlucky timing of being formed during the COVID pandemic created tall hurdles for the pair. Hiring staff was a problem and the company had to collaborate remotely, in addition to serving new, unfamiliar clients. But Rare assembled a team that thrives in challenging conditions, Rabinovich said, and the brokerage now has a resale team of 140 realtors.

When Rare surveyed the state of the GTA housing market, it identified an opportunity to bring a “massive value-add” of its skills to low-rise developments, he said, “and the level of discipline that we’ve garnered to low-rise developers who traditionally haven’t used real estate brokerages at all to serve this sales and marketing role.”

Today, Rare represents clients including developers Almadev, Caivan and DBS Developments, mainly in the high- and low-rise residential and mixed-use sectors, and has crossed $4.5 billion in sales.

Value-add critical to growth

For low-rise preconstruction sales, Rare has been involved in projects such as Caivan’s Arbor West in Brampton, and Hallett Homes’ Abacot Hill in Mississauga and Joshua Creek in Oakville.

Abacot Hill is introducing new detached housing to a city with limited development of that type. It shows Rare understands “what does that market need more of” and can “fill in that gap to provide more opportunities, more options for buyers seeking to get into the market,” Rabinovich said.

With Joshua Creek, Hallett aims to bring townhomes under $1 million to a market that has seen minimal product at that price point in years, he said. For the third-and-final phase Rare will be marketing for sale, the townhomes will be three-bedroom units up to 1,800 square feet.

It also offers single detached homes of four  to six bedrooms, up to 3,600 square feet, with prices starting from $1.9 million.

Expected buyers for Joshua Creek include families both young and old, as well as downsizers for some of the smaller housing options.

Sales have not been formally launched yet, but Rabinovich said the community has garnered strong early interest.

A new standard for sales

Though securing $500 million in preconstruction contracts for low-rise development may be humble compared to four to five years ago, Rabinovich said if an average low-rise developer was asked today if they would take 130 sales on a site in a year, most would be enthusiastic about that.

“I think it’s all rooted back into really bringing a tangible value-add to our client’s board room,” Rabinovich said about Rare's growth in the low-rise sector.

Rabinovich is seeing developers adjust the prices of their projects to reflect the current preconstruction market. But if lingerers are still caught in the mindset that the early 2022 market is coming back soon, “I think it’s time to pivot away from that line of thinking,” he said.

Value is king to a buyer in today’s market, Rabinovich said, so it is crucial to offer not only a very attractive price point, but consider the experience of living in a home and how it fulfills the needs of the buyer.