Canada's housing market is cooling on paper, and Toronto is cooling with it. Recent reports from Royal LePage and the Canadian Real Estate Association show home prices down nationally, with Toronto recording a 3.7 per cent decline compared with the same time last year.
The two reports approach the market from different angles — Royal LePage through its brokerage network and CREA through MLS sales data — but they land in the same place: a market that has moved from the frenzy of the pandemic years into a slower, more negotiated phase.
For buyers, a near-four-per-cent annual drop in Toronto does not make the city cheap, but it changes the bargaining table. Longer listing times and softer prices give purchasers room that simply did not exist when bidding wars were the default.
For sellers, the reports are a pricing instruction. Homes listed at last year's expectations are the ones sitting, while properties priced to the current market continue to move.
Economists watching the sector say the next test is the fall market's remaining weeks: whether softer prices draw sidelined buyers back in, or whether cautious households wait for a clearer signal on interest rates and employment.
