u/lianlikealways

...and almost nobody's talking about how bad it's actually gotten.

Urbanation dropped their year end numbers for 2025 back in January and they're genuinely kind of stunning once you sit with them. Only 1,599 new condo units sold across the entire GTHA for the whole year, that's down 60% from 2024 and down roughly 95% from the 2021 peak. Q4 alone was just 262 units sold, the weakest quarterly result since Q3 1990, so we're talking a 35 year low. Only 10 new condo projects launched in the entire region across all of 2025, and of the units that did launch, only 22% actually sold, compare that to 2021 when 81% of newly launched units sold almost instantly.

On top of the sales collapse there was a record wave of cancellations too, 28 active projects representing over 7,200 units got scrapped in 2025, more than double 2024 and above the previous record set back in 2018. Some of those did get converted to purpose built rental instead, about 2,200 units worth, which is honestly probably the best outcome available in this environment, but most just got pulled from the pipeline entirely. And roughly 10% of presold units that were supposed to register in 2025, close to 3,000 units, ended up getting taken back by the developer because the original buyer couldn't or wouldn't close, which tells you a lot about how underwater some of those 2021-2022 contract prices turned out to be.

Here's the part that actually matters long term though. Completions this past year were still near record levels, 29,291 units, but that's basically just the tail end of stuff that got approved and broke ground years ago before any of this hit, condos take something like 4-6 years start to finish so today's completions reflect decisions made way back. Urbanation's own forecast has completions falling to 22,066 in 2026, then 14,366 in 2027, and their president went on record saying by the end of the decade there basically won't be any new condo completions in the GTHA at all. That's not really speculation at this point, it's just what's left in a pipeline that's barely being fed.

Purpose built rental starts did jump to a multi decade high, 8,545 units, up 24%, as some developers pivot away from condos, and that part's genuinely good news, but basically everyone tracking this says it's nowhere near enough volume to replace what condos used to contribute to overall housing supply in the region.

So yeah, prices being down mid single digits yoy is the headline everyone keeps repeating, but the actual structural story underneath it is that the region built its way into a real supply cliff for somewhere around 2027-2030, while population keeps growing regardless of what the presale market is doing right now. Feels like that should be a bigger part of the conversation given how much "housing supply crisis" gets thrown around in this city already.

Ok this one's a bit of a mindbender so bear with me, but I think it's the most interesting stat I've come across

Everyone assumes Toronto is the most expensive place in Canada to get a reno done, and historically that's fair, it's just not for the reason you'd think anymore

StatCan actually runs a proper price index for this (the Residential Renovation Price Index), tracks 37 different project types across 15 cities every quarter, mandatory survey of contractors and everything so it's not some vibes based ranking. Zoom out to the big multi year picture and yeah, Toronto earned the reputation. From 2017 through mid 2024 the national index rose 66.5% overall, Ontario blew that out of the water at +91.8%, the single largest increase of any province in the country, and StatCan flat out says in the release that was driven specifically by price pressure in Toronto. So the "Toronto reno prices only go up" thing, historically correct.

Here's the part that actually got me though. Look at the last few quarters instead of the whole multi year run and Toronto has quietly been the calmest city in the entire index. Q1 2025, Toronto was literally the only city out of all 15 tracked where renovation costs went down, -0.5%, while Victoria and Quebec City were both up 1.4% that same quarter. Q2 2025, same story again, Toronto had the smallest increase of any city at +0.3% while Quebec City jumped 3.0% and Regina and Saskatoon were both up 2.2%. And that Q2 was the quarter Canada slapped the 25% retaliatory tariff on US steel, aluminum, appliances, textiles, so basically the rest of the country ate that cost way harder than Toronto did.

My read on it, and it's just a read, is Toronto already did its explosive run up years ago so contractors here are kind of sitting near a ceiling at this point, and on top of that the market is genuinely soft right now, resale sales have been down, condo presales are basically dead, so there's just less demand pulling reno prices upward the way there is in hotter markets. Checks out with the renovator sentiment surveys too, Ontario reno businesses reported the highest share of "extremely concerned about my business" of any region in the country heading into 2026, CHBA's been tracking that.

Kind of a fun one to drop on anyone who assumes Toronto pricing only moves in one direction. It went up the most, historically, and has basically been sitting still while the rest of the country catches up to it lately.

worth poking around the actual statcan releases yourself if you're into this stuff, they're way more readable than people expect, linking below in 1st comment.