{"id":137432,"date":"2026-07-21T02:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T02:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/137432\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T02:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T02:41:18","slug":"new-condos-drive-torontos-first-sales-increase-in-nearly-three-years-but-its-not-all-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/137432\/","title":{"rendered":"New condos drive Toronto’s first sales increase in nearly three years. But it’s not all good news"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"toronto-condos-gs0720\"<\/a> New condominiums rise up as part of a development in the Greater Toronto Area. New data showed that sales rose for recently completed condo units while pre-sales slumped 80 per cent in the second quarter of 2026. (Credit: Peter Power) <\/p>\n

New condominium sales<\/a> in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area<\/a> posted their first annual increase in nearly three years last quarter \u2013\u2013 a rebound driven by buyers snapping up completed units. But pre-construction demand still awaits a revival. <\/p>\n

According to condo research firm Urbanation Inc.<\/a>, sales climbed 52 per cent from a year earlier to 702 units in the second quarter, marking the first year-over-year gain since the third quarter of 2023. <\/p>\n

The increase follows Ontario’s enhanced HST rebate<\/a> and the federal government’s elimination of GST on qualifying new homes, a measure aimed at improving a condo market<\/a> that has been grappling with a prolonged downturn. <\/p>\n

The gains, however, were far from evenly distributed. <\/p>\n

Nearly all the improvement came from completed projects, where sales tripled to 535 units, helped in part by bulk purchases from investment companies. Pre-construction sales moved in the opposite direction, plunging 80 per cent to just 50 units. <\/p>\n

“After more than four years of decline, it’s an important signal to see new condo sales respond to the elimination of HST and investor activity,” said Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand in the report. “That said, this improvement is coming off an extremely low base, and pre-construction demand remains largely dormant.” <\/p>\n

Several factors put the breaks on new construction, said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, in a separate report on the housing market Friday. “Residential construction responds to the (recent economic) downturn by pulling back. Presales dry up and projects don’t go ahead or get shelved. Lower resale prices also render new construction relatively uneconomical.” <\/p>\n

Pricing is a drag on new builds both in relation to resale prices as well as lower revenues from bulk purchases. Completed, unsold new condos were at an average asking price of $1,186 per square foot in the second quarter, roughly 43 per cent above comparable resale units, according to Urbanation. And for the new condo sales that did occur, many were negotiated under asking prices. <\/p>\n

Hildebrand said in an email that the company tracked seven bulk sales of at least five completed units each that closed in the second quarter, together accounting for 204 sales or 30 per cent of all new condo sales. Those bulk purchases sold for an average of $773 per square foot, roughly seven per cent below the average resale price of $830 per square foot. <\/p>\n

In BMO’s report, Kavcic said resale prices in some markets have fallen below replacement costs \u2013\u2013 the cost of land, construction materials, labour and development charges \u2013\u2013 making it increasingly difficult for developers to justify launching new projects. <\/p>\n

According to the Urbanation report, for the second consecutive quarter there were no new condo project launches. Meanwhile, 1,022 units were cancelled during the period and construction starts fell to just 448 units. <\/p>\n

The combined pre-construction and under-construction inventory shrank to 48,710 units in the second quarter, down 37 per cent from a year earlier and 62 per cent from a high of about 127,000 units in 2022. <\/p>\n

Even if the bulk sales were excluded, there would have been 498 sales in the second quarter, Hildebrand said, which would have represented an eight per cent year-over-year increase, suggesting the HST rebate helped boost demand beyond large institutional transactions. Still, he said, “with virtually no new units being added to the pipeline, condo supply is set to see its largest ever decline in the coming years.” <\/p>\n

\u2022 Email: shcampbell@postmedia.com<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New condominiums rise up as part of a development in the Greater Toronto Area. New data showed that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[45643,45642,27418,7053,6166,48],"class_list":["post-137432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-bulk-purchases","tag-bulk-sales","tag-condo-sales","tag-condo-units","tag-pre-construction","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}