Buying Condos One Unit at a Time to Turn a Building Into Rentals

Some Edmonton condo owners say investment firms are making individual offers on multiple units at the same time, with the aim of gaining enough control to convert the property into rentals, according to Global News Canada. The mechanism is the interesting part: any single unit purchase is unremarkable, and owners are free to accept or refuse. The leverage comes from doing many of them at once, so that the accumulated share rather than one transaction crosses whatever threshold is needed to change how the building is used. Note that this is the owners' characterization of what the firms are doing — a reported allegation, not an adjudicated finding.