Toronto-area real estate prices are down for the ninth straight month, about 21 per cent since the 2022 peak, in the worst downturn since the 1990s.
That’s according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s (TRREB) report on October sales, published Wednesday.
It puts the average property price across the region at $1.054 million, about seven per cent lower than October last year.
“People who are actively looking to purchase a home in today’s market are benefitting from a lot of negotiating power, and with negotiating power comes lower prices generally,” said TRREB’s chief information officer Jason Mercer.
Sales are also down 9.5 per cent compared to October 2024, to 6,138.
Meanwhile, new listings were up 2.7 per cent year-over-year to 16,069.
The average selling price was down slightly from September’s $1.059 million but the home price index composite was flat when adjusted for seasonality.
“It’s a continuation of the trend we’ve seen play out for most of the year, whether sales have been up or down on sort of a monthly basis, sales remain low in comparison to available inventory,” said Mercer.
While the glut of shoebox-size condos on the market and cancelled new projects have made headlines lately, the October TRREB data shows large drops in price from the 2022 peak for both detached and semi-detached homes across the Toronto region.
Average detached home prices have fallen about 25 per cent (to $1,355,506) and semis 24 per cent to ($1,033,770) since February 2022. In comparison, condos are down about 18 per cent in the region to $660,208.
The biggest drops compared to October 2024 were in the average price of a 416 townhome (down 14 per cent), the average price of a condo in the 905 (down 10 per cent) and the average price of a detached home in the 416 (down about nine per cent).
Asked if the real estate market is crashing, Mercer said prices have responded to the lack of affordability.
“As we move into 2026 if we see more certainty around where the overall economy is headed, you’re going to see a greater number of households that are willing to come off the sidelines and move back into the marketplace,” he said, “to take advantage of what’s become a much more affordable housing market situation over the last 12 months.”
The Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate to 2.25 per cent in late October, which some experts hope may spur sales.
As to how low prices can go, Mercer said it’s hard to say but we could be at or approaching the bottom.
“We’re getting closer to that with the interest rate cuts we’ve seen and with the price declines that we’ve seen so far this year,” he said.
“The average mortgage payment for a home in the GTA has moved closer to the average household income, and I think that’s the inflection point where we’ll start to see a real pickup in sales.”
