What did a GTA home sell for in October? Your client’s answer depends on which number they pulled up.

TRREB reported 5,603 sales in October 2026, down 7.9 per cent from 6,083 a year ago. New listings came in at 14,173, down 11.9 per cent. Active listings sat at 25,098, down 10.0 per cent. Buyers pulled back and sellers pulled back harder.

 

The price numbers your clients will see

 

The median sale price was $860,000. That’s the same as September, and down from $900,000 in TRREB’s October 2025 report.

The average selling price was $1,024,108, down 2.7 per cent from $1,052,539 last October.

The MLS HPI composite benchmark was $916,400, down 4.28 per cent year over year.

A client who sees the median next to September thinks prices stopped falling. A client who sees the benchmark thinks we’re still in a correction. The benchmark is the one to trust.

 

Why the average and the benchmark don’t match

 

The median and the average only describe the homes that sold that month. Change what sold and you change the number, even if no home got more valuable.

That’s what happened in October. Detached homes were 2,693 of the 5,603 sales, or 48.1 per cent, up from 46.5 per cent in last October’s report. Condo apartment sales fell 10.4 per cent and townhouse sales fell 11.0 per cent. When cheaper product drops out of the mix faster, the average gets propped up.

The benchmark strips that out. It prices a typical home with fixed characteristics, so a shift toward detached sales doesn’t flatter it. That’s the number I use in pricing conversations, and it said down 4.28 per cent.

 

By type, the benchmark is consistent

 

Every major type is down year over year on the HPI:

• Detached: $1,194,200, down 4.44 per cent
• Semi-detached: $914,300, down 3.83 per cent
• Townhouse: $662,200, down 6.64 per cent
• Condo apartment: $521,600, down 7.33 per cent

Condos are still the weakest segment. There were 8,100 active condo apartment listings against 1,385 sales. Semis were the only type selling over asking on average, at 101 per cent of list. The overall average sale-to-list was 97 per cent.

Average listing days on market was 31, the same as a year ago. Months of inventory on trend was 4.6 and the sales-to-new-listings ratio on trend was 37.9 per cent. That’s a soft, balanced market, and it isn’t speeding up.

 

Durham is where October hurt most

 

My colleague Robert Marsiglio, a salesperson at Valery Real Estate who works the Durham market, flagged this one, and I checked his numbers against TRREB’s regional tables.

Durham sales fell 17.6 per cent, from 715 in October 2025 to 589 this October. That’s the biggest drop of the five core GTA regions. Durham was also the only one of those regions where active listings rose, up 1.9 per cent to 2,619. Peel’s active listings fell 15.6 per cent and York’s fell 10.1 per cent, with York sales close to flat.

Durham’s average price fell 6.9 per cent to $793,024. Months of inventory moved to 3.6 from 3.2, and sale-to-list slipped to 98 per cent from 99 per cent. Year to date, Durham sales are down 10.8 per cent.

Marsiglio also tracks power-of-sale listings across the GTA. On his MLS counts, 1.85 per cent of new Durham listings in October were power-of-sale listings, and 62 of 2,845 active Durham listings on Nov. 1 were power of sales. That’s 2.2 per cent, the highest share of any region he tracks, against 1.5 per cent across the GTA. So far in 2026, Durham’s power-of-sale share of new listings is 1.28 per cent, more than eight times the 0.15 per cent it ran in 2021.

If you’re listing in Durham, those are your comps now.

 

The whole GTA is on pace for its weakest year in a decade

 

Marsiglio ran the full-year math too. Year to date, GTA sales are 52,694. To match 2025’s revised 62,310, November and December would need 9,616 sales, 11.4 per cent more than those two months did last year. September and October both ran well behind last year, so I’m not expecting it.

If November and December just match last year, 2026 ends at 61,324 sales. That’s below every year in TRREB’s annual table back to 2013, and less than half of 2021.

416, 905 and the builder down the street

 

Detached split hard in October. In the 416, sales were up 0.5 per cent and the average was down 1.2 per cent to $1,603,886. Call that holding. In the 905, sales were down 6.2 per cent and the average fell 4.7 per cent to $1,199,303. The 905 is 72 per cent of detached sales, so it drags the GTA number.

 

Part of that is new construction. I compared 507 actively selling 905 preconstruction projects from Meta Realty’s Red Bricks data against sold resale in the same city and type. Pre-con freehold towns ask 8.1 per cent less per square foot than resale, and detached 4.5 per cent less. In Halton, detached pre-con is 12.1 per cent under. In Durham, detached is 10.9 per cent under and freehold towns 9.8 per cent under. Against homes built since 2021, the gap is within 4 per cent either way.

 

Those are asking prices against sold prices, and pre-con closes years out. If you’re listing a 2021-24 build in the 905, pull the builder price sheets nearby before you set a list price, because your buyer will check them.

 

Rates went the wrong way

 

The Bank of Canada’s overnight rate was 2.5 per cent in October after a hike, and TRREB reports prime at 4.5 per cent. Inflation was 3.1 per cent in September. Posted five-year mortgage rates in the report were 6.19 per cent.

TRREB’s line is that lower prices are offsetting higher borrowing costs. That’s fair on monthly payments. It does nothing for a buyer waiting to see where rates go next.

TRREB also noted that seasonally adjusted sales, new listings, the benchmark and the average all edged up from September. I’d want three months of that before calling it a turn.

 

What to tell clients

 

Buyers still have leverage. Prices are down on the benchmark across every type, and the average home sells under asking. Don’t let a flat month-over-month median talk them into a bidding war. Semis are the exception, so set expectations there.

Sellers need to price off the benchmark trend for their type and area, and expect 97 per cent of list on average. In Durham, expect to compete with power of sales and with builders pricing under resale. If a neighbour’s sale looks strong, check whether it’s a mix effect before you lean on it.

For agents, pick the number before the client does. Show median, average and benchmark side by side and explain the mix effect once. It takes two minutes and it saves you a bad list price later.

 

The bottom line

October was a smaller market with lower prices. The benchmark is still down 4.3 per cent and Durham is taking the worst of it. Unless November and December surprise, 2026 will post the fewest GTA sales in a decade.

 

 

By Daniel Foch and Robert Marsiglio