The construction industry warns that 100,000 jobs are at risk
“You have to look back to the 1940s to find a comparable collapse in new home construction”
Ontario’s tanked real estate market is putting up to 100,000 construction-related jobs at risk, according to a new report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association. “New home sales are down across the province,” said Justin Sherwood, COO at BILD, in a statement. “To find a comparable collapse in activity, you would probably have to look back to the 1940s.”
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A mere 240 new homes were sold across Ontario in December of 2025, down 82 per cent from the 10-year monthly average of 1,327, and zero single-family homes were sold in Toronto that month. BILD’s report also found that there were 5,314 total home sales across the province in 2025, the lowest amount on record.
“Never in the 45 years that new-home-sales data have been collected for the GTA have we seen a figure so low,” says Edward Jegg, research manager at Altus Group, BILD’s source of data. “Meanwhile, 2026 is likely to see geopolitical concerns linger...and the Bank of Canada has indicated that the cycle of interest rate cuts has ended. Thus the main drivers of buyer hesitancy are expected to drag on well into the year.”
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Inventory remains high, with 20,849 homes on the market last December, comprising 15,115 condo units and 5,734 single-family houses. That is a combined inventory level of 26 months, based on average sales of the past 12 months—the highest inventory level seen to date.
