Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand cautions that by the end of the decade, the region is on track to see virtually no new condominium completions.
New condominium apartment sales across the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA) declined for a fourth straight year. According to Urbanation’s year-end 2025 Condominium Market Survey, sales dropped 60% from 2024 to just 1,599 units, the lowest annual figure recorded since 1991.
Urbanation is a firm that provides site-specific studies for new condominium and purpose-built rental development projects for over 40 years.
After four consecutive years of falling sales, completions are projected to decrease to 22,066 units in 2026 and 14,366 units in 2027. By 2029, Urbanation expects that almost no new condos will be delivered to the market.
The Market Survey shows that 2025 sales were 91% below the 10-year average and 95% lower than 2021 levels. Activity failed to rebound toward the end of the year, with only 262 units sold in Q4, making it the weakest quarter since Q3-1990.
The downturn has been accompanied by a sharp increase in project cancellations. In 2025, a record 28 active condo projects totaling 7,243 units were cancelled.
More than double the number of units cancelled in 2024 and well above the previous high set in 2018. Of those cancellations, eight projects representing 2,189 units were converted to purpose-built rental, following a similar conversion of 1,434 units in 2024. Even with these conversions, overall condominium construction activity fell significantly.
Purpose-built rental starts rose 24% year-over-year to 8,545 units in 2025, reaching a multi-decade high. In contrast, condo starts plunged 63% to 3,272 units, a multi-decade low.
Looking at the longer trend, condo starts have declined 88% over the past three years, pushing total inventory under construction to a 10-year low of 50,479 units.
Developers launched only 10 new condo projects in the GTHA last year, bringing 1,425 units to market. Just 22% of those units sold, down from 24% in 2024 and far below the 81% sales rate seen in 2021. This decline occurred despite average new-launch selling prices dropping to a five-year low of $1,123 per sq. ft, down 8% from 2024 and 18% from 2022.
New condos continued to command a premium compared with similar resale units, which averaged $856 per sq. ft in Q4 for condos completed within the past three years.
Urbanation also noted a shift away from pre-construction sales in 2025. A record 33% of new condo sales took place in projects at the occupancy or registration stage, up from 9% in 2024 and just 2% in 2023.
For the first time, pre-construction projects accounted for less than half of all new condo sales, after typically making up more than 70% of annual activity.
As a result, completed and unsold inventory increased sharply. By the end of 2025, there were 3,897 completed and unsold condo units, up 131% year-over-year and five times higher than levels recorded in 2023.
Urbanation further found that about 10% of pre-sold condos registered in 2025 were taken back by developers after buyers failed to close, representing roughly 3,000 units.
This all occurred while completions remained elevated. A total of 29,291 condo units were completed in 2025, nearly matching the record set in 2024 and running 50% above the 10-year average. Completions are forecast to fall to 22,066 units in 2026 and 14,366 units in 2027. By 2029, Urbanation says virtually no new condos are expected to be delivered.
“As the condo market enters the fifth year of its largest-ever correction, the length of this downturn should raise serious concern about future supply,” Hildebrand said in a release. “By the end of the decade, we know with certainty that there won’t be any new condo completions.”
“What remains unclear,” he added, “is how far into the 2030s this supply crunch will extend. If rental construction fails to bridge the gap, it raises significant questions about the impact on affordability.”
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