Despite Toronto’s impractical cost of living, the stress of the trade war and the nation’s casual economic recession and all, it’s a pretty great time to get into GTA real estate if that’s always been a dream of yours.
Sellers are getting desperate as new listings continue to indundate the market while sales numbers remain a shadow of what they once were.
The downward spiral has been been especially bad for condos, and worse, still, for new condos — so bad that a growing number of complexes have been stalled in various stages of progress, with not enough units sold to continue.
Naturally, this has been cause for alarm among stakeholders on the building side of things, who continue to plead for the government to intervene in the form of lowering certain taxes, development charges and other fees that hamper new construction.
The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) are among those leading the calls, regularly releasing new data that paints a picture of how dreadful things have gotten in the sector — including another new update this week.
The CMHC’s numbers from February show that while housing starts in Canadian cities generally have declined by 17 per cent in the last year — a concerning amount on its own given that building more housing remains a key goal across levels of government — they are down more than a staggering three times this amount in Toronto specifically.
The number of new homes being built in the 6ix has plummeted a whopping 68 per cent year-over-year, the largest drop of any city, making it perhaps the worst major market in the country for new home construction right now.
Comparatively, housing starts in Montreal rose 6 per cent year-over-year, and were up 13 per cent in Federicton, 44 per cent in Calgary and a whopping 87 per cent in Ottawa-Gatineau, though we must rememer that the benchmark of last year was also a difficult one for sales and new builds.
Vancouver, meanwhile, ever on par with Toronto as far as high price points and deteriorating sales numbers, saw 48 per cent fewer new housing starts last month than in February 2024.
The nosedive in both cities was spread across housing types, and was more dramatic than in January (when there were 41 per cent and 37 per cent new residential projects, respectively, breaking ground than the same time last year).
