Urbanation just released its Q2-2025 condominium market survey results for the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area. The results are as expected: new home sales are slow (like, 91% below the 10-year average) and unsold inventory is rising. But what I'm most interested in is trying to guess the future.
Urbanation expects a total of 17,117 condominium homes to complete in the second half of this year, which would bring total completions for 2025 to 31,422 homes (which is an elevated number). Completions in 2026 are then expected to drop to a more "historically normal level" of 18,037 units.
At the same time, there are 64,623 condominium homes under construction as of Q2-2025. I take this to mean that, once the above 17,117 homes complete in the second half of this year, there will be at least 47,506 new homes still under construction as we start 2026.
If we do end up completing 18,037 units next year, and ignoring any new starts, that will leave just under 30k units under construction into 2027. If completions remain at a similar level after this, we could then be close to building our way through this condominium pipeline by the end of 2027.
Of course, this says nothing about actual absorption. It's one thing to build a new home, but it has to ultimately get filled. And right now, there are almost 2,500 unsold condominium apartments in newly completed projects across the region. This is a record high going back as far as 2005.
So it's hard to say. But my view continues to be that, by 2028, we should be on the other side of this market. In the meantime, if you're looking for a place to live in Toronto, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better time to buy. Most people will be too scared, and that's the point.
Cover photo by Venrick Azcueta on Unsplash
According to recent data from Altus, Toronto recorded 42 new condominium sales in the month of May. That's a 97% decrease since May 2021, for a city of over 3 million people (city proper, not the metro area). So for all intents and purposes, the market is shut off. And it has resulted in upwards of 12,000 construction sector jobs disappearing over the last 12 months in Ontario. Moreover, it has left the Toronto Area with an unemployment rate that is close to 10%.
But that's not all.
The Missing Middle Initiative estimates that this dramatic decline in new home sales (which is more of a leading indicator than housing starts) could conservatively result in all three levels of government forgoing something like $6.6 billion in tax revenue each year. And within this lost revenue, there's something like a $2 billion reduction in revenue just from development charges (which don't get paid if developers aren't starting construction).
These are alarming figures that beg the question: How will government make up this shortfall? But once again, here's the thing. If development charges are intended to be "growth paying growth" then, in theory at least, development charge revenue shouldn't matter. The growth has disappeared and so the things that DCs pay for should also disappear — right?
In practice, we know that it's more nuanced than this and that growth pays for a lot of stuff. The clearest evidence of this is likely to rear its head when the DC funds run out. We're going to be forced to plug the hole with something else. So over the long term, I actually think this will prove to be a positive outcome for the housing market. Because it's going to necessarily wean us off the practice of overtaxing new homes.
This week, our team toured a new 9-storey mass timber residential building going up at 230 Royal York Road in Toronto. The developers are Windmill Developments and Leader Lane Developments. The construction manager is Oben Build. The mass timber company is Vancouver-based Intelligent City. And when it's completed, it is expected to be the tallest residential building in Toronto. But I suspect it won't hold this title for very long. Building out of wood is destined to become a major part of how we build in this city and country. So here are a bunch of photos from the site walk. I tried to include as many detail shots as possible so that you can all get a sense of how it pieces together.
Urbanation just released its Q2-2025 condominium market survey results for the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area. The results are as expected: new home sales are slow (like, 91% below the 10-year average) and unsold inventory is rising. But what I'm most interested in is trying to guess the future.
Urbanation expects a total of 17,117 condominium homes to complete in the second half of this year, which would bring total completions for 2025 to 31,422 homes (which is an elevated number). Completions in 2026 are then expected to drop to a more "historically normal level" of 18,037 units.
At the same time, there are 64,623 condominium homes under construction as of Q2-2025. I take this to mean that, once the above 17,117 homes complete in the second half of this year, there will be at least 47,506 new homes still under construction as we start 2026.
If we do end up completing 18,037 units next year, and ignoring any new starts, that will leave just under 30k units under construction into 2027. If completions remain at a similar level after this, we could then be close to building our way through this condominium pipeline by the end of 2027.
Of course, this says nothing about actual absorption. It's one thing to build a new home, but it has to ultimately get filled. And right now, there are almost 2,500 unsold condominium apartments in newly completed projects across the region. This is a record high going back as far as 2005.
So it's hard to say. But my view continues to be that, by 2028, we should be on the other side of this market. In the meantime, if you're looking for a place to live in Toronto, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better time to buy. Most people will be too scared, and that's the point.
Cover photo by Venrick Azcueta on Unsplash
According to recent data from Altus, Toronto recorded 42 new condominium sales in the month of May. That's a 97% decrease since May 2021, for a city of over 3 million people (city proper, not the metro area). So for all intents and purposes, the market is shut off. And it has resulted in upwards of 12,000 construction sector jobs disappearing over the last 12 months in Ontario. Moreover, it has left the Toronto Area with an unemployment rate that is close to 10%.
But that's not all.
The Missing Middle Initiative estimates that this dramatic decline in new home sales (which is more of a leading indicator than housing starts) could conservatively result in all three levels of government forgoing something like $6.6 billion in tax revenue each year. And within this lost revenue, there's something like a $2 billion reduction in revenue just from development charges (which don't get paid if developers aren't starting construction).
These are alarming figures that beg the question: How will government make up this shortfall? But once again, here's the thing. If development charges are intended to be "growth paying growth" then, in theory at least, development charge revenue shouldn't matter. The growth has disappeared and so the things that DCs pay for should also disappear — right?
In practice, we know that it's more nuanced than this and that growth pays for a lot of stuff. The clearest evidence of this is likely to rear its head when the DC funds run out. We're going to be forced to plug the hole with something else. So over the long term, I actually think this will prove to be a positive outcome for the housing market. Because it's going to necessarily wean us off the practice of overtaxing new homes.
This week, our team toured a new 9-storey mass timber residential building going up at 230 Royal York Road in Toronto. The developers are Windmill Developments and Leader Lane Developments. The construction manager is Oben Build. The mass timber company is Vancouver-based Intelligent City. And when it's completed, it is expected to be the tallest residential building in Toronto. But I suspect it won't hold this title for very long. Building out of wood is destined to become a major part of how we build in this city and country. So here are a bunch of photos from the site walk. I tried to include as many detail shots as possible so that you can all get a sense of how it pieces together.
There's no other choice right now.
Cover photo by Dinil Fernando on Unsplash
There's no other choice right now.
Cover photo by Dinil Fernando on Unsplash
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