Toronto’s housing market will soon face a 235,000-unit shortfall if the city doesn’t get to building
Roughly 550,000 newcomers arrived here between 2023 and 2024, with many more on the way
A new report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) delivers sobering news for anyone planning to rent in Toronto: over the next decade, the GTA is headed for a catastrophic 235,000-unit rental shortfall, even as today’s market appears to be improving for renters.
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In 2024, the region saw a historic rental boom. Nearly 35,000 new purpose-built and condo rental units were completed, which was more than double the 10-year average. This surge was fuelled by record immigration, with approximately 550,000 newcomers arriving over 2023 and 2024 alone.
But then the federal government implemented policy changes to sharply reduce arrivals. Fewer temporary residents and international students then led to reduced demand. Condo rental listings in the second quarter of 2025 jumped 16 per cent year-over-year while average one-bedroom rents fell 5.1 per cent to $2,326.
That renters’ reprieve won’t last. Even with slower population growth—about 727,000 new residents are expected over the next decade, down from nearly 1.2 million in the previous 10 years—that’s still three-quarters of a million people who will need somewhere to live. Meanwhile, rental construction has tanked, with completions projected to fall to a 20-year low of just 13,076 in 2028.
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Other related factors driving the shortage include investors pulling out of the once roaring condo market and developers stalling or abandoning projects bogged down by long approval timelines and high costs. Across the GTA, roughly 200,000 purpose-built rental units are stuck at the proposal stage, and hundreds of thousands more are languishing in planning.
BILD’s report demands action from all three levels of government to avert disaster. Toronto needs to eliminate or slash development charges for rental projects and lower property tax rates for purpose-built rentals, the industry association says. It adds that Queen’s Park should free up existing development charge reserves for shovel-ready projects and that Ottawa must expand lending programs, lift the foreign-buyer ban and establish a housing task force to coordinate responses from all three levels of government.
Ali Amad is a Palestinian-Canadian journalist based in Toronto. His work has appeared in publications including Toronto Life, Maclean’s, Vice, Reader’s Digest and the Walrus, often exploring themes of identity, social justice and the immigrant experience.
