Stafford Developments launched luxury development 429 Walmer, shown in a rendering, in October.stafford.ca
Luxury condominium buyers remain one of the few bright spots in the Greater Toronto Area after 2025 saw a collapse in sales of new condos to levels not seen in more than 35 years.
That’s one of the take-aways from year-in-review reporting from real estate data provider Zonda Urban, which found that of the nine new condo launches in 2025 (which was 91 per cent lower than the peak of the market in 2021, when there were 101 launches), five were luxury buildings with selling prices of $2,213 per square foot on average. That’s more than double the current average resale price of existing condos.
However, simply raising prices is unlikely to make a project work.
“With this type of a product, you need a good team that knows that kind of buyer, a buyer that is not as driven by the state of the economy and what’s going on,” said Pauline Lierman, vice-president of market research for Zonda Home.
She said there has also been a shift away from “executive luxury” buildings that featured a large volume of units in sometimes super-tall buildings, often with a mix of smaller one-bedroom size apartments intended to be rented out and not lived in by the owner. In 2025, luxury buyers gravitated toward more boutique-size buildings that emphasized living space and exclusivity for owners planning to stay.
How the Toronto condo bubble burst
Even with only about 278 of these luxury apartments for sale – mainly in midtown Toronto – selling velocity was still modest. “The average was about 18 per cent of units sold. Some of these projects are still very early on, but up to about 40 per cent of units have sold in select cases,” she said.
In October last year, Stafford Developments launched 429 Walmer – a boutique luxury building sandwiched between Toronto’s Forest Hill and Casa Loma neighbourhoods – with plans for 48 suites. While Stafford president Jonathan Goldman said the sales are ahead of schedule, it hasn’t been like the “mass market” condos where there’s an overnight sellout.
“Truthfully, we haven’t sold enough to get to construction; we’re at about 20 per cent,” he said, noting the company hadn’t expected a lot of high-end buyers to shop during the holiday season. He added there’s a lot more to selling these units than just showing someone a model suite and some plans.
“We do take a different perspective when we’re talking about hyper-luxury. I’m papering a $10-million deal today on a big 4,000-square-foot unit,” at 429 Walmer, he said in an interview early in the new year. Part of that deal involved redrafting and redrawing plans, speaking with the client’s own designers and decorators, as well as those hired by his company. “These are all very hands-on transactions; it’s a very service-oriented asset class, not like any other building in the rest of the city,” he said.
In addition to being offered an amenities package that aims to feel more like a resort than a residence (including a vast indoor pickle ball court and a secure underground valet station for cars), buyers in this category are not looking to downsize, said Mr. Goldman.
“We have to make sure people are happier in this building than the current homes they are living in. In this demographic, they are looking to ‘side-size,’” he said. “Some of these people are coming from much larger homes. They are not looking for anything under 2,500 square feet. The sweet spot is 2,500 to 4,000 with this category.”
What might a condo market recovery look like?
According to Ms. Lierman, such supersize luxury remains a minute part of the condo market in Toronto and the wider region. For instance, relatively low-cost townhouses actually outsold condo apartments in 2025 (1,763 to 1,533, respectively) for the first time in more than 15 years.
And there are still more high-rise developers pivoting to a high-density rental development than those looking at making suites larger and buildings smaller. As of the fourth quarter, the number of condo apartments under construction fell to 50,415 (down 33 per cent year over year) while rental apartments under way hit 28,623.
According to market researcher Urbanation Inc., Toronto-area rental construction starts hit 8,545 in 2025 – up 24 per cent from 2024 – while condo construction starts fell 63 per cent in the same period.
Urbanation also saw a record-high 3,827 units of unsold but recently completed condo inventory (which includes apartments where buyers have defaulted on purchase agreements), or close to 10 per cent of the 29,291 condos that were completed in 2025. The new high watermark for condo cancellations (more than 7,243 units cancelled at 28 projects) in 2025 also saw new highs in such condo-to-rental conversions, with more than 2,189 units being repurposed, up 52 per cent over the previous year.
Nevertheless, the market’s not done with luxury condos yet. The first condo sales launch Ms. Lierman expects for 2026 is a luxury building, but it might be a while before it has any company. “That’s all that we’re seeing right now,” she said.