January home sales in the Greater Toronto Area fell 19.3 per cent compared with the same month last year.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Toronto’s ice-encrusted real estate market is showing early signs of a thaw heading into the stretch between Family Day and the school March break.
The record-breaking snowfall that blanketed the city may have caused some homeowners to delay their listing, says Davelle Morrison, broker with Bosley Real Estate, but determined house hunters push through.
“All it does is stop the looky-loos,” she says. “If people are willing to brave minus 20 and massive snowbanks, they’re serious.”
Anxiety surrounding Canada’s economy, the antics of U.S. President Donald Trump and the fragile state of the real estate market itself appear to be weighing more heavily on buyers than the 56 centimetres of snow that piled up downtown in a single day.
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Ms. Morrison saw a spurt of buyers book appointments to see one of her condo listings right as January kicked off, but the activity soon fizzled.
“It’s shocking the slowdown in showings,” she says.
Frazzled agents often seek her feedback after she takes her own buyer clients on a tour of condos.
“The agents with the listings are all over me.”
Ms. Morrison says some condo buyers are put off by steep maintenance fees – especially as rents in the city soften.
The more enthusiastic buyers are looking at semi-detached houses.
Sales are steady compared with other segments of the market, she says, but buyers are still careful not to pay too much.
In one case, a house in Toronto’s east end was listed with an asking price of $1.199-million and drew six offers. The house sold only slightly above asking at $1.207-million.
“Yes, it has six offers, but the offers show people were being smart,” says Ms. Morrison.
Another east-end semi arrived on the market in February at $789,000, after it was listed last year with a different agent at $999,000.
Ms. Morrison says the house has had some updates – including having the old knob and tube wiring removed – in the meantime.
Her clients decided against bidding on the property on the offer date because it’s early in their search, she says.
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Kyle Dahms, senior economist with National Bank of Canada, is forecasting a challenging year for real estate in the Greater Toronto Area in 2026.
Mr. Dahms notes that sales appeared to stabilize in the second half of 2025 but sharply deteriorated at the start of the year to near-historic lows.
Mortgage rates have plateaued for the most part, he says, and uncertainty ramped up again in the midst of an alarming news cycle.
Against that backdrop, sales in January dropped 9.9 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis from December.
Mr. Dahms says some buyers are likely waiting for clearer signals, while others have given up altogether, given the unaffordability in the market.
Active listings rose 3.7 per cent in January from December on a seasonally adjusted basis, which loosened up the active-listings-to-sales ratio and brought inventory to a lofty level compared with historical averages.
Sales also fell compared with sales at the same time last year, numbers from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board show.
In January, sales in the GTA dropped 19.3 per cent compared with the same month last year.
The average price in the GTA dipped below the $1-million threshold to $973,289. That marks a 6.5-per-cent decline from January, 2025, when the average price was $1,041,171.
New listings fell 13.3 per cent in the same period.
Active listings, meanwhile, rose 8.1 per cent last month from the same time last year.
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In the GTA, diverse neighbourhoods, niches and price brackets tend to have their own microclimate.
In January, every segment saw declines, but some slopes were steeper than others.
The divergence between the suburban 905 area code and central 416 was notable in January: sales of condos in the suburban 905 area code, for example, tumbled 30.3 per cent and the average price fell 13 per cent compared with the same month last year.
Condo units in the 416, by comparison, saw a 23.6-per-cent slide in sales and an 8.6-per-cent drop in the average price.
The semi-detached bracket in the 416 posted a 25-per-cent decline in sales in January from the same time last year, but the average price remained almost flat with a 0.9-per-cent dip. By comparison, semi-detached properties in the 905 saw a smaller 15.7-per-cent drop in sales in the same period, but the average price fell 14.5-per-cent.
The average price of a semi in the core was $1,146,188 last month. In the suburbs, semis traded for an average of $840,356.
Sales of detached houses in the 416 decreased 16.4 per cent and the average price edged down 2.8 per cent last month from January, 2025. Sales of detached houses in the 905 declined 12.8 per cent in the same period, and the average price dropped 8.8 per cent.
The average price of a detached house in the core came in at $1,541,791 last month, while a detached home in the 905 had an average price of $1,205,859.
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Still, despite the chilly January numbers, some properties sell quickly with multiple offers.
Cheri Dorsey McCann and Kaitlin McCann, brokers with McCann Realty Group, drew three offers for a large condo that has remained mostly unchanged since it was built in 1987.
“My client was the original owner,” says Ms. Dorsey McCann. “She bought it off of plans. She picked well.”
Penthouse 901 at 2900 Yonge St., sold for $2,221,000 after it was listed with an asking price of $1,889,000.
Ms. Dorsey McCann says setting an asking price was challenging because sales have been uneven in the building, which appeals to downsizers living in nearby Lawrence Park and other affluent neighbourhoods.
She adds that one buyer submitted an offer as soon as the two-bedroom, three-bathroom unit arrived on the market. While the family was reviewing the offer, two more landed.
“I was expecting to get activity, but I wasn’t expecting it to go over – certainly not with three offers.”
Ms. Dorsey McCann adds that sellers of single-family houses in the area are also experiencing a bumpy market: some agents are setting low asking prices in an attempt to spark competition, but the strategy fails on offer night.
“Agents are trying that and sometimes it’s backfiring on them,” she says. “It’s difficult for the buyers.”
Ms. Dorsey McCann’s clients submitted one of two offers on a detached house in midtown with an asking price of $1,889,000. The sellers spurned both offers.
The house was relisted with an asking price above the $2-million mark.
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Ms. McCann says some of the homeowners who are setting elevated asking prices purchased during the COVID-19 pandemic, when prices reached their peak.
Now they are trying to sell for the amount they paid, but prices have declined in the meantime.
When homeowners in similar circumstances approach Ms. Dorsey McCann, her advice is frank: They risk seeing their property languish until it sells for a lower amount months later.
“If you price too high, you’re chasing the market, which is what you don’t want to do.”
Looking at the pipeline in the weeks ahead, Ms. Morrison is expecting a flurry of new listings for houses after the Family Day long weekend.
She is holding off the launch of a detached house in the Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue area with an asking price around the $2-million mark until after the holiday. She figures many of the move-up buyers she hopes to attract will head out of town for the weekend.
Ms. Morrison is curious to see how the long-awaited launch of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT affects real estate values in the outer reaches that now have better connections to the centre of the city.
Proximity to the rapid transit line running along Eglinton Avenue was once touted by agents as a selling point but eventually became a punchline, she says.
“For the longest time, we would say ‘it’s on the LRT line, and no one believed you.”