GTA Housing Market Update – July 2026
For four straight months, home sales in the Greater Toronto Area went up.
March, April, May, June. Each month came in ahead of the year before. It wasn't a boom by any stretch, but after years of a market in which supply outpaced demand, it left some hopeful that the market was turning.
Market observers started calling the bottom. Some went as far as arguing that the second half of the year would bring the real turn — that buyers who had been sitting out were finally coming back, and that anyone still waiting would miss their window.
Then July arrived, and the market stalled.
Home sales came in 2% below last July. Not a collapse, but not a recovery either. The streak ended, and the bullish story that had been building on top of it ended with it.
Prices went the same direction they've been going. Low-rise homes are down 4% from a year ago. Condos are down 3%. Nothing in July suggests that trend is about to reverse.
The One Trend That Has Held:
There is one number that keeps moving, and it's the one people pay the least attention to.
New listings continue to fall at double-digit rates compared to last year.
This is a real shift, and it's worth being precise about what it means. Last year, sellers came to market in unusually high numbers. July 2025 saw close to 17,000 new listings, which was well above anything we'd seen in the decade before the pandemic.
This July, new listings came in around 14,000.
Look at where that sits historically. Between 2012 and 2019, July new listings ran between roughly 13,000 and 15,000 almost every single year. We are now back inside that range.
So the supply side of this market has normalized. The flood of sellers that defined 2024 and 2025 has receded, and listings are behaving the way they used to behave.
What Still Hasn't Recovered:
The problem is demand, and it has been the problem the entire time.
For the past five years, July home sales in the GTA have come in under 6,000. Every single year. The historical norm for the month is closer to 8,000.
That is a shortfall of roughly a quarter of all transactions, sustained for half a decade.
And this isn't a July story. Sales volumes across the past five years have sat at or near 20-year lows, month after month. We have now had a longer stretch of weak sales than we had during the financial crisis, and the market has adapted to it so thoroughly that people have started treating it as the baseline.
Falling prices are the direct consequence of this. Not oversupply, not investor listings, not any of the explanations that come and go. Prices are falling because far fewer people are buying homes than the market was built to absorb, and that has been true for five years running.
What a Bottom Would Actually Look Like:
Two things need to happen before this market finds a floor.
The first is that new listings return to historically normal levels. That appears to be happening. The surge of sellers that defined the past two years has receded, and July puts us back inside the range this market ran at through the 2010s.
The second is that sales come up off the lows.
Sales don't need to return all the way to the historical norm. For most of the past 20 years, demand ran ahead of supply, and that imbalance is why prices climbed the way they did. Recreating it isn't the condition for a floor, it's the condition for another run-up.
But sales do need to come off the 20-year lows.
One half of that equation is falling into place. The other half hasn't moved.
It didn't move in the spring, and July was the month the spring's momentum ran out.
Until sales come up, everything else is noise.
July at a Glance:
Houses
Sales were down 2% over last year.
New listings were down 17%.
Active listings were down 12%.
Months of Inventory increased to 4.1.
Average price: $1,204,188, down 4%.
Median price: $1,029,000, down 5%.
Condos
Sales were up 1% over last year.
New listings were down 18%.
Active listings were down 14%.
Months of Inventory increased to 5.7.
Average price: $651,739, down 3%.
Median price: $575,000, down 6%.
Monthly Statistics:
House Statistics
House sales (low-rise freehold detached, semi-detached, townhouse, etc.) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in July 2026 were down 2% compared to the same month last year.
New house listings in July were down 17% compared to last year.
The number of houses available for sale (“active listings”) was down 12% in July 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 July is heading.
The MOI for houses increased to 4.1 in July.
The share of houses selling for more than the owner’s list price fell to 21% in July.
The average price for a house in July 2026, $1,204,188, was down 4% from the same month last year.
The median house price in July was $1,029,000, down 5% 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 July 2026 were up 1% compared to the same month last year.
New condo listings were down 18% in July over last year.
The number of condos available for sale at the end of the month, or active listings, was down 14% over last year.
Condo months of inventory increased to 5.7 MOI in July.
The share of condos selling for over the asking price decreased to 14% in July.
The average price of a condo in July was $651,739, down 3% from last year. The median price was $575,000, down 6% from last year.
For four straight months, home sales in the Greater Toronto Area went up.
Then July arrived, and the market stalled.
Home sales came in 2% below last July. Not a collapse, but enough to cool the little bit of optimism that had been building, that maybe the market was turning a corner.
Prices went the same direction they've been going. Low-rise homes are down 4% from a year ago. Condos are down 3%. Nothing in July suggests that trend is about to reverse.
John Pasalis is President of Realosophy Realty. A specialist in real estate data analysis, John’s research focuses on unlocking micro trends in the Greater Toronto Area real estate market. His research has been utilized by the Bank of Canada, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Have questions about your own moves in the Toronto area as a buyer, seller, investor or renter? Book a no-obligation consult with John and his team at a Realosophy here: https://www.movesmartly.com/meetjohn