TRREB’s July numbers came out in early August, and buried in them is the most important shift of the year: the supply side of the GTA market is drying up much faster than demand is softening. With August data due out this week, here’s the setup heading into the fall market.
July 2026, by the numbers
- Sales: 5,995 — down just 0.9% year over year
- Average price: $1,003,956 — down 4.5% year over year
- New listings: 14,484 — down 17.8% year over year
- MLS HPI Composite benchmark: down 4.6% year over year
Read those together: demand held basically flat while nearly one in five sellers disappeared. On a seasonally adjusted basis, July sales actually rosefrom June while new listings fell. TRREB’s president put it plainly: “With sales accounting for a larger share of listings, buyers may find there is less room to negotiate moving forward.”
The exception: condos
The tightening is not evenly distributed. The condo apartment segment is still deep in buyer’s-market territory: the HPI apartment benchmark fell 7.35% year over year to $535,200, with 8,352 active condo listings at the end of July — new condo listings ran at more than 2.6× the pace of sales. If you’ve been priced out since 2021, this segment is where the leverage still lives — and where the new HST relief on new builds hits hardest.
The two-sided cost of waiting
For two years, waiting rewarded GTA buyers: prices drifted down and rate cuts were always “coming.” The fall 2026 math is different, on both sides:
- Price side:listings down 17.8% with stable sales is how price stability starts. Nobody rings a bell at the bottom — tightening supply is the bell.
- Rate side:lenders raised fixed rates 10–20 bps in late August as the 5-year Canada bond yield hit a 12-month high near 3.36% — with the Bank of Canada on hold the whole time. Two major banks now forecast policy hikes by December.
Waiting no longer clearly buys you a cheaper house, and it no longer clearly buys you cheaper money.
What to do with this
- Buying this fall: get pre-approved with a 120-day rate hold now — it insulates you through both remaining Bank of Canada decisions this year. Then shop the segments where supply is still heavy (condos, select townhouse pockets) while the detached market tightens around you.
- Selling: the panic-listing phase is over. With 18% fewer competing listings, a properly prepared and priced home gets real attention again. The fall window after Labour Day is the one to hit.
- Watching:TRREB’s August Market Watch lands this week. I’ll break it down when it does — if listings drop again, the window narrows further.
Want a read on your specific street or building before the fall market? A comparative evaluation is free: 647-649-1282.