Toronto’s housing sales were down 90 per cent this year
It gets worse: construction on new homes sunk by 58 per cent, and the sector lost more than 10,000 jobs
The school year may have just started, but Toronto’s housing market is already failing.
The University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative, on behalf of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), handed out the F grade in a recent report. It found that the city’s sales were down 91 per cent in the first six months of 2025 compared with the same period between 2021 and 2024. Housing starts were also down 58 per cent, and employment in the sector fell by about 10,200 jobs.
Related: Mark Carney just launched a $13-billion fund for housing
“These findings are troubling and should set off alarm bells for policymakers across all three levels of government,” RESCON president Richard Lyall said in a statement. “Housing projects have been shelved and the industry has hit a wall. The outlook is bleak, and we are trending in the wrong direction.... Our economy will be in dire straits if we do not act quickly.” Lyall’s solution? Calling on governments to lower the tax burden on builders, developers, investors and buyers in order to kick-start the industry.
In addition to the general housing crisis and the affordability crisis, Toronto is currently in the midst of a condo crisis, with a glut of small units and little demand, which resulted in 80 per cent less new construction getting underway this year. Ground-level construction starts, meanwhile, were down 40 per cent.
Related: All Toronto Public Library branches will soon be open seven days a week
Housing starts, in truth, are a lagging indicator of the market’s health. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation considers a building started once its foundation is complete rather than when pre-construction sales begin. That means their figures reflect business decisions made several years prior. It takes about 3.8 years to build a ground-level home and 1.5 years to build an apartment unit. So Toronto’s real estate market will get worse before it gets better.
But at least the city isn’t failing alone. Of the 34 Ontario municipalities analyzed in the report, 22 received an F, five a D and only seven a C or higher.
