HST boost led to nearly fourfold increase in Toronto-area new single-family home sales in May

Justin Sherwood, chief operating officer at BILD, said some buyers hesitated to make their purchase because they were waiting for clarification on how the HST rebate would work. 

“Some homebuyers had questions about how it would be administered and preferred to wait until the details were coming forward,” he said.

The Ontario and federal governments said they would spend $2.2 billion to give Ontarians a one-year break on the full HST of new houses and condos costing up to $1 million, with the same savings for new homes costing up to $1.5 million. However, in May, the proposed legislation had not been passed.

According to the report, there were 830 sales of new lowrise homes (detached, semi-detached and linked houses as well as townhomes), which was 26 per cent more than the 10-year average.

These sales were four times higher than May 2025, when only 208 new single-family homes were sold. 

May marked the second consecutive month where lowrise home sales exceeded the 10-year average, after three years of sitting below it.

Most lowrise sales took place in Halton and York regions, followed by Durham and Peel. Only five were sold in Toronto.

The benchmark price for these homes was about $1,428,000, down 5.2 per cent from one year prior.

At the same time, only 193 new condos (including units in low-, medium- and highrise buildings, plus stacked townhouses) were sold, representing an 89 per cent drop from the 10-year average.

Toronto had the most condo sales at 83, followed by Peel (46), York (30) and then Halton (22). Durham Region had the least condo sales, with 12.

Condo benchmark prices remained about the same as the year prior at around $1,029,000.

Sherwood told the Star that Altus Group, which prepares the monthly reports, did not include cases where companies purchased condo units in bulk. It did not respond to a followup question on the reason by press time. 

Last month, global Montreal-based real-estate firm Jesta Group announced it had bought $30 million worth of unsold condos in downtown Toronto. The company’s senior managing director, Anthony O’Brien, told the Star the HST rebate is why they could do it.

Toronto-based investment firm High Art Capital has also launched a $1.3-billion fund to buy new condo units with plans to turn 2,200 of them into rentals, including around 550 affordable ones. 

BILD said its benchmark price data does not incorporate any HST rebates “in order to facilitate a like-on-like comparison with previous years.”

The report also found there were still more than 13,000 condos available to buy, and more than 5,600 single-family lots in inventory.

The findings follow the GTA real estate market’s worst year in 25 years. In 2025, there were just about 62,000 home sales, a figure not seen since 2000, when there were about 61,000 home sales, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.

The federal and provincial governments also announced in March an $8.8-billion fund to cut development charges — fees developers pay to a municipality to fund local infrastructure — as another effort to further boost the home-building industry.