The bleeding in the assignment market gets worse

The preconstruction assignment market, once the darling of real estate speculators, is facing its moment of truth, with investors having to hand over ever more cash to escape unsellable contracts and already facing steep losses.

“You can’t imagine how many people are trying to off-load what they bought,” said Sundeep Bahl, realtor with Re/Max Plus City Team Inc., who said most of the people he sees never intended to live in the condo they agreed to purchase, believing they could flip them for a profit instead.

“Now they realize they have to lose money – profit is out of the question,” he said. “The average loss I would say is at least $100,000. We have had some lose $200,000.”