In Canada's official housing-supply statistics, “an absorbed unit is a housing unit that has been sold and completed. A unit is considered sold when a binding contract is secured by a non-refundable deposit and has been signed by a qualified purchaser”, per CMHC's own survey methodology.
CMHC's Market Absorption Survey applies exclusively to new construction in Census Metropolitan Areas with populations exceeding 100,000, focusing on homeownership and condominium structures only, tracking units from completion through final sale. The mirror term, an “unabsorbed unit, is a housing unit that has been completed but not yet sold”.
Agents and analysts also use “absorption rate” loosely for the resale market, to describe how quickly active listings are clearing relative to sales — but no Canadian board or CREA publishes a formally defined resale absorption rate under that name. For that purpose, boards instead publish months of inventory and the sales-to-new-listings ratio (see both, linked below). Before quoting an absorption-rate figure to a client, confirm which of the two genuinely different concepts — new-build completions or resale-listing pace — the person you're talking to actually means.
The distinction is not academic for an agent working pre-construction or assignment deals. CMHC's own pricing note is specific: “price information is collected from various sources, including builders and includes the unit, land and net HST/GST. Unabsorbed prices may be revised upon absorption”. A published unabsorbed price on a still-unsold unit is therefore not locked in the way a resale listing price is — it can move before that unit is actually absorbed, which is worth flagging to a buyer client comparing a builder's current price sheet against CMHC's data.
A condo project completes 220 units in March. By the following January, CMHC's survey shows 190 of those units absorbed (sold and completed) and 30 still unabsorbed — a roughly 86% ten-month absorption rate for that specific completion, not a citywide resale statistic. A buyer's agent watching that project for a client can treat a rising absorbed count as a sign of genuine market appetite, distinct from whatever the resale market two blocks away is doing on its own months-of-inventory reading.
See also: months of inventory and the MLS Home Price Index.
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