Toronto Area Real Estate Market Report ~ April 2025

Home sales in the Greater Toronto Area have fallen to their lowest level in nearly 30 years, underscoring the impact of mounting economic uncertainty—particularly around U.S. trade and fiscal policy—on buyer sentiment. With more prospective buyers staying on the sidelines, inventory continues to build across the region. 

Active listings for detached homes have reached their highest level in 15 years, and the condo market has hit a new record with 8,659 units available for sale—well above the 10-year average of 3,728. 

At the same time, prices are softening. Median prices for both houses and condos have declined by 4% or more for the second consecutive month, reinforcing the shift in market conditions. Sellers are facing longer listing times and increased competition, while buyers have more leverage than they've had in years. 

Unless there is a material improvement in the broader economic outlook—particularly with greater clarity around U.S.-Canada trade relations—this cautious tone is likely to continue. If such clarity emerges in the near term, there’s potential for the market to see a modest pickup in the second half of the year.

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By the Numbers: March 2025

The average price for a house in the Toronto area was $1,335496,486 in March, down 3% from the same month last year. Last month's median house price was $1,175,000, down 4% from the same month last year.

House sales in March were down 24% over last year, while new house listings were up 31%. The number of houses available for sale at the end of the month, or active listings, was up 81% over last year.

The current balance between supply and demand is reflected in the MOI, which measures inventory relative to the number of sales each month. In March, the MOI for houses increased slightly to 4.4.

The average price for a condo in the Toronto Area was $708,084 in March, down 3% from the previous year. The median price for a condo in March was $635,000, down 5% from the previous year.

Condo sales in March were down 26% over last year, and new condo listings were up 27%. The number of active condo listings was up 59% from last year. The MOI increased to 6.5. 

Browse detailed monthly statistics for March 2025 for the entire Toronto area market, including house, condo and regional breakdowns below. 

WATCH NOW: Should Canada Be Giving Investors a Tax Break to Buy Even More Homes?

Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney proposed waiving the GST on new homes up to $1 million—but only for first-time buyers. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had originally planned to eliminate the GST on all new homes up to $1 million, regardless of who’s buying—but quickly upped the limit to $1.3 million in a bid to one-up Carney.

On the surface, both plans are meant to help stimulate the housing market. But let’s not lose sight of what’s actually going on here - and who these tax breaks really benefit. If we’re being honest, these proposals aren’t about helping families afford homes. They’re about bailing out a new housing market that was inflated by speculative investors and is now struggling to stay afloat.

Let’s take a step back. The new housing market isn’t frozen because of taxes. The GST and development charges have been around for years—even when the condo market was booming. What’s changed isn’t the GST tax rate but the irrational prices that investors were willing to pay during the speculative frenzy. They were handing over $1,800 a square foot for pre-construction units that were worth $1,200 on the resale market. That was never sustainable.

Now that the bubble’s burst, builders can’t sell units at those inflated prices, and buyers aren’t biting. There’s a massive disconnect between what builders need to charge to make their projects viable and what end-users are willing to pay. Instead of letting the market correct itself, we’re now talking about using tax dollars to subsidize the very investors who helped drive up prices in the first place.

This is a pattern I’ve seen repeatedly: the same housing economists and pundits who advocated for an investor-driven free market during the boom are suddenly calling for government intervention when the market crashes. Apparently, when things go bad for investors, the “free market” needs help from taxpayers.

This investor-driven housing model is a big part of the problem. We’ve allowed a system to flourish where first-time buyers compete against older, wealthier investors - many of whom already own multiple properties. When you prioritize investors, you shut out the next generation from homeownership.

Even worse, this model harms our long-term economic productivity. When governments and banks funnel capital into housing speculation instead of business investment, we’re left with an economy that extracts value instead of creating it. That’s part of why Canada’s per capita GDP growth is among the worst in the OECD.

So if you ask me which plan is better - Carney’s or Poilievre’s - I lean toward Carney’s. At least it prioritizes first-time buyers. It’s not perfect, and frankly, I’d rather see the GST exemption apply to the first  $1 million of any home purchase (not just homes under $1 million), but it’s a better approach than giving blanket subsidies to speculators.

We need policies that put families ahead of investors. That’s the only way we start to fix this broken housing system. 

WATCH NOW: Poilievre’s Capital Gains Plan: Building Rentals While Pricing Out Young Canadians

Pierre Poilievre’s proposed capital gains deferral plan has sparked debate about its potential impact on Canada’s housing market.

The policy, which allows investors to defer paying capital gains taxes if they reinvest their profits in Canada, could offer some benefits - particularly in boosting the supply of purpose-built rental housing. However, when applied to the broader housing market, especially owner-occupied homes and investment properties, it risks worsening affordability and further entrenching the financialization of housing.

At a time when Canada faces a shortage of rental housing, this policy could incentivize developers to build more rental properties. Many companies that specialize in constructing purpose-built rentals prefer to sell completed projects to institutional investors or property management firms that handle long-term operations. Poilievre’s plan could encourage these developers to reinvest their profits in new projects by allowing them to defer capital gains taxes when they sell, stimulating further construction.

If executed correctly, this could increase the supply of rental housing, helping stabilize rents and providing more affordable options for Canadians who cannot afford to buy homes. Purpose-built rental units are a critical part of addressing Canada’s housing shortage.

However, while this policy could encourage more rental construction, it carries significant downsides when applied to other areas of the housing market - particularly owner-occupied homes and investment properties. By allowing investors to defer capital gains taxes, the policy makes real estate an even more attractive investment vehicle. This is especially concerning when individual investors and corporations buy up single-family homes, fueling the financialization of housing - where homes are treated as financial assets rather than places to live.

For baby boomers sitting on substantial home equity or corporations with deep pockets, Poilievre’s plan provides an opportunity to roll over their profits into more properties without facing an immediate tax hit. This could lead to more speculative investment in the housing market, driving up prices and making it even harder for young Canadians to enter the market. As a result, homeownership would move further out of reach for younger generations, who are already struggling to save for down payments amid skyrocketing home prices.

Moreover, the policy encourages more of Canada’s wealth to flow into functionless, extractive investments like housing, rather than supporting productive sectors such as technology, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship. A smarter approach would be to offer tax incentives to those building businesses, creating jobs, and driving innovation - not to those parking their money in residential properties.

It’s also clear that this policy is aimed at attracting the boomer vote, but it does so at the expense of younger Canadians who are being priced out of homeownership. While there’s a valid argument for using capital gains deferrals to encourage the development of purpose-built rental housing, applying the same incentives to owner-occupied homes and investment properties risks exacerbating Canada’s housing crisis.

If Poilievre’s plan moves forward without addressing these unintended consequences, it could deepen generational divides and accelerate the transformation of Canada’s housing market into a vehicle for wealth accumulation - rather than a system that provides secure and affordable homes for Canadians.

Canada’s sluggish housing market has triggered another round of finger-pointing, with many economists and industry voices blaming government taxes—especially sales taxes and development charges—for high prices and falling construction. Some even liken these charges to “sin taxes” on cigarettes or alcohol, arguing they discourage housing supply.

But housing taxes don’t work like sin taxes. In fact, the effect is almost the opposite—and removing them wouldn’t have prevented the crisis we’re in today.

Imagine if governments had eliminated all taxes on new housing five years ago—about 30% of the total cost. Would homes be cheaper today? Would more homes have been built?

Unlikely. In the short term, builders wouldn’t have lowered prices—they would’ve sold homes for whatever the market could bear. Back in 2021, demand was being driven by speculation, not affordability. Tax savings would have simply inflated profits.

Over time, those higher profits would’ve pushed up land prices. That’s because land isn’t a fixed cost—it’s endogenous, meaning its value rises or falls depending on what developers can afford based on their projected revenue and all the other input costs. If taxes go down, landowners capture the difference. Builders pay more for land, not less for housing.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened during Toronto’s condo boom. Despite high taxes, pre-construction units sold at record-breaking prices because investors believed prices would keep rising. Lowering taxes wouldn’t have cooled the market. It would’ve just funneled more money to landowners and speculators.

And here’s the critical point: if taxes had been removed back then, our housing market would still be just as frozen today. The only difference is that builders would have paid significantly more for their land. And that inflated land cost is exactly what would be choking new construction now. It would’ve made today’s downturn even harder to fix, while leaving governments with fewer tools to help.

Critics accuse cities of “tax grabs” for raising development charges during the boom. But those charges were a rational response to surging new home prices. They weren’t about discouraging housing—they were about capturing some of the speculative windfall that would’ve otherwise gone entirely to private landowners.

Should cities lower fees now? Possibly. In a slower market, targeted relief could help unlock stalled projects. But let’s be clear: taxes didn’t cause the affordability crisis. What broke the market was a flood of speculative investment, rising land costs, and the widespread belief that housing was a guaranteed financial asset.

Reforms should be designed to support end users—people who want to live in homes—not reward the flippers and investors who drove prices out of reach. The real culprit isn’t taxation. It’s the investor-driven bubble we allowed to form.

Monthly Statistics

House Statistics

House sales (low-rise freehold detached, semi-detached, townhouse, etc.) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in March 2025 were down 24% compared to the same month last year.

New house listings in March were up 31% compared to last year.

The number of houses available for sale (“active listings”) was up 81% in March compared to the same month last year.

The Months of Inventory ratio (MOI) looks at the number of homes available for sale in a given month divided by the number of homes sold in that month. It answers the following question: If no more homes came on the market for sale, how long would it take for all the existing homes on the market to sell, given the current level of demand? The higher the MOI, the cooler the market is. A balanced market (a market where prices are neither rising nor falling) is one where MOI is between four to six months. The lower the MOI, the more rapidly we would expect prices to rise.  

While the current level of MOI gives us clues into how competitive the market is on-the-ground today, the direction it is moving in also gives us some clues into where the market March is  heading. 

The MOI for houses was unchanged at 4.4 in March.

The share of houses selling for more than the owner’s list price decreased to 36% in March.

The average price for a house in March 2025, $1,335,496, was down 3% from the same month last year.

The median house price in March was $1,175,000, down 4% over last year.

The median is calculated by ordering all the sale prices in a given month and then selecting the price at the midpoint of that list such that half of all home sales are above that price and half are below that price. Economists often prefer the median price over the average because it is less sensitive to big increases in the sale of high-end or low-end homes in a given month, which can skew the average price.  

Condo Statistics

Condo (condominiums, including condo apartments, condo townhouses, etc.) sales in the Toronto area in March 2025 were down 26% compared to the same month last year.

New condo listings were up 27% in March over last year.

The number of condos available for sale at the end of the month, or active listings, was up 59% over last year.

Condo months of inventory increased to 6.5 MOI in March. 

The share of condos selling for over the asking price increased to 20% in March.

The average price of a condo in March was $708,084, down 3% from last year. The median price was $635,000, down 5% from last year.

Browse Real-Time Market Trends on Movesmartly.com:

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