The Greater Toronto Area housing market just logged one of its ugliest Aprils in recent memory.

Inventory is exploding. Sales are evaporating. Prices are falling across nearly every category. And buyers? They’re nowhere to be found.

There’s no panic in the streets, just a silent standoff. Sellers are flooding the market with listings, while buyers sit on their hands, watching values slide.

It’s not a crash, but it’s close enough to leave bruises. And it’s not a typical correction, either. What we’re witnessing is something slower, quieter, and far more stubborn: a full-scale collapse in conviction.

Inventory is soaring, but the bidding wars are gone

Condos are ground zero

April’s active condo inventory surged past 12,000 listings, a figure that would’ve been considered excessive even in the most aggressive spring markets. For context, 9,000 active listings in April would typically be seen as high. This is an overhang in supply.

The cause? A combination of project completions and a stall in resale demand. Developers are delivering units into a market that no longer has a queue of eager end-users or rental investors.

With only 1,430 condo units sold, a massive drop from the typical 2,500–3,500 range for April, absorption is deteriorating rapidly. In simple terms, sellers are outnumbering buyers nearly nine to one.

That imbalance doesn’t just weigh on prices, it corrodes buyer urgency. Why act fast when there’s this much inventory?

Detached, semis and towns aren’t immune

The problem isn’t confined to condos. Detached and townhouse sales (year-over-year) also fell sharply across the GTA (416 and 905 combined):

• Detached homes: -21.7 per cent
• Townhouses: -22.9 per cent
• Semi-detached homes: -10.0 per cent

The only exception? One small corner of the market, 416 semi-detached, managed to avoid a decline. But that’s the outlier. Almost everywhere else, the drop-off has been swift and steep.

Pair that with a 54 per cent year-over-year surge in active listings, and you see that this isn’t just a slowdown. It’s a market-wide reversal, with sellers flooding in and buyers quietly backing away.

Prices are slipping, and buyer psychology is shifting

Death by a thousand cuts

Price declines may appear moderate at first glance, but they’re now widespread and consistent:

• 416 Detached: -6.8 per cent
• 416 Semi-Detached: -7.2 per cent
• GTA Condos: -6.8 per cent
• Overall GTA HPI Benchmark: -5.4 per cent
• Average Sale Price (GTA): -4.1 per cent

Only one category, 416 townhouses, recorded a price gain, and even then, it was a negligible 0.7 per cent.

While some sellers are still clinging to 2022 valuations, buyers are recalibrating. Many are starting to believe that the longer they wait, the better the deal. That belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It delays transactions and forces sellers to concede further on price.

Buyer hesitation now has macro tailwinds

This isn’t just anecdotal. It aligns with broader consumer trends. Modest wage growth and high household debt levels are creating a structurally cautious buyer pool. 

Even affordability improvements through lower prices are failing to spark demand. That suggests the core issue is no longer affordability alone, but conviction.

The rental market: A canary in the coal mine

If you’re wondering where all the would-be buyers have gone, the rental market offers no answers. In fact, it might be sending a warning.

• New Toronto condo rental listings are at record highs in 2025.
• Active rental listings in April hit their highest level ever recorded.
• Rents have rolled back to Summer 2022 levels.

This could be significant. With investor cash flow under pressure and rental supply running ahead of tenant demand, we may be seeing early signs of retreat from the investor segment. If that continues, it’s possible that those who once absorbed inventory for rental income are now stepping back, leaving a growing share of listings untouched.

In short, two of the market’s usual pillars, end-users and rental investors, may both be drifting to the sidelines.

Implications: Where this is headed

1. Price pressure will likely intensify

With listings still climbing and sales still declining, pricing pressure is inevitable. Unless demand stages a meaningful comeback in May or June, sellers, particularly in the condo segment, will be forced to chase the market down.

Buyers know this. Their expectations are now shaping price direction as much as macro forces.

2. Pre-construction and investor segments are at risk

The pre-construction market is particularly vulnerable. Urbanation recently found that “The Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA) new condo apartment market reported a total of 533 sales in Q1-2025, declining 62 (per cent) year-over-year and 88 (per cent) below the 10-year average to reach the lowest quarterly total since 1995. The 215 new condo sales in the City of Toronto in Q1 fell to its lowest level since 1990.”

With rents softening and resale values falling, the math no longer supports many investor-oriented projects. Assignments are likely to flood the market in the coming quarters. Expect significant strain among those who bought into 2021–2022 launches near peak pricing.

Developers may be forced to delay launches, offer incentives, or pivot product types, especially in oversupplied areas like the downtown core.

3. The market is functioning, but without momentum

Deals are still happening, and hence the market isn’t frozen. But it’s one without direction. The fundamentals have become disconnected.

In this kind of market, liquidity exists, but only for sellers willing to discount, and only for buyers confident enough to act. That’s not a healthy balance. That’s fragility.

4. The next move belongs to the Bank of Canada

The Bank of Canada’s next policy moves will be critical. If it signals rate cuts in the coming months, that could thaw demand by late summer or fall. But if it holds firm, the current limbo could stretch into Q3 and beyond.

Until then, expect:

• Longer days on market
• More aggressive price reductions
• And most critically, buyers to continue to wait

Final thought: The market isn’t crashing—it’s stalling

There’s no panic in the numbers. But there’s no pulse either.

What April has made painfully clear is this: the GTA housing market isn’t functioning on fundamentals anymore. It’s functioning on fear of overpaying, catching the knife, and making the wrong move in a directionless environment.

Until something changes, the only thing moving quickly in this market is time.

Daniel Foch

Daniel Foch is the Chief Real Estate Officer at Valery.ca, and Host of Canada’s #1 real estate podcast. As co-founder of The Habistat, the onboard data science platform for TRREB & Proptx, he helped the real estate industry to become more transparent, using real-time housing market data to inform decision making for key stakeholders. With over 15 years of experience in the real estate industry, Daniel has advised a broad spectrum of real estate market participants, from 3 levels of government to some of Canada’s largest developers.

Daniel is a trusted voice in the Canadian real estate market, regularly contributing to media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CBC, Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail. His expertise and balanced insights have earned him a dedicated audience of over 100,000 real estate investors across multiple social media platforms, where he shares primary research and market analysis.