Something unusual is happening in the GTA new-home market.
After an extremely difficult period for new construction sales, buyers are starting to come back.
But they aren’t coming back equally.
In July 2026, the GTA recorded 1,018 new-home sales. That’s a major improvement from the record-low level seen a year earlier, although total sales were still 40% below the 10-year July average.
Dig a little deeper, however, and the market looks completely different.
New single-family homes are selling strongly.
New condominiums are still struggling.
In fact, July marked the fourth consecutive month in which GTA single-family new-home sales exceeded their 10-year average.
So why is one side of the GTA new-home market recovering while the other remains near historic lows?
And what does this split tell us about where buyers are putting their money in 2026?
The July Numbers Tell Two Completely Different Stories
According to BILD’s July data, sourced from Altus Group, the GTA recorded:
781 new single-family home sales
and only:
237 new condominium apartment sales.
The single-family category includes detached, linked and semi-detached homes as well as townhouses, excluding stacked townhouses.
Those 781 sales were approximately 50% above the 10-year July average.
Condo sales, meanwhile, were still approximately:
80% below their 10-year average.
That’s an enormous gap.
And it shows why simply saying:
“GTA new-home sales are recovering”
doesn’t tell the whole story.
One part of the market is performing above historical norms.
The other remains dramatically below them.
What’s Bringing Single-Family Buyers Back?
One of the biggest factors appears to be the enhanced HST rebate available to eligible new-home buyers.
BILD says the increased demand following the introduction of the rebate has helped low-rise sales outperform their 10-year average for four consecutive months.
The recovery didn’t begin in July.
In April, single-family sales moved above their 10-year average for the first time in three years.
They remained above the historical average in May and June.
And July became the fourth consecutive month.
That’s starting to look less like a one-month spike and more like a meaningful shift in buyer activity.
How Much Can the New HST Rebate Actually Save?
This is where the numbers become important.
For qualifying first-time buyers, the federal First-Time Home Buyers’ GST/HST Rebate can provide a rebate of up to $50,000 on the federal portion of HST.
For eligible new homes valued at $1 million or less, qualifying first-time buyers can receive up to 100% of the federal GST portion back.
The benefit gradually phases out between $1 million and $1.5 million, and no federal first-time buyer rebate is available at $1.5 million or above.
Ontario has also introduced its enhanced new housing rebate. For eligible purchasers, the Ontario Enhanced New Housing Rebate can provide up to $80,000 toward the provincial portion of HST.
Depending on eligibility and the purchase, these programs can materially change the effective cost of buying a newly built home.
But buyers should not assume every purchaser or every new home automatically receives the maximum rebate.
Eligibility, purchase price, agreement dates and other conditions matter.
Why Is the Rebate Helping Houses More Than Condos?
This is where the story becomes particularly interesting.
If the HST rebate improves affordability for new homes, shouldn’t condo sales also be recovering?
You might expect so.
But that’s not what the numbers show.
One explanation identified by Altus Group relates to the way the rebate’s eligibility and implementation interact with projects at different stages of construction. The current conditions have benefited parts of the low-rise market more quickly.
But there is also a broader market issue.
Today’s new-condo buyer is very different from the condo buyer of several years ago.
For years, Toronto’s pre-construction condo market relied heavily on investors.
Buyers could purchase a unit years before completion, put down deposits gradually, and expect rising prices and rents to help make the investment work.
That equation has become much more difficult.
Higher carrying costs, weaker resale values, financing uncertainty and poor investor economics have reduced the appeal of many pre-construction condos.
So even with tax relief, many buyers are still asking:
“Does this condo actually make financial sense?”
Single-Family Buyers May Be Purchasing for a Different Reason
The motivations can also be different.
A buyer looking at a detached home or townhouse in:
Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Oakville, Pickering or other GTA communities
may be purchasing primarily because they need somewhere to live.
They may need:
more bedrooms,
a backyard,
a garage,
more space for children,
or a long-term family home.
That’s very different from an investor deciding whether a 500-square-foot pre-construction condo will generate an acceptable return four years from now.
When affordability improves, an end-user who already needs a home may be more willing to act.
An investor can simply decide:
“The numbers still don’t work. I’ll wait.”
That difference may help explain why the two markets are moving at such different speeds.
Prices Tell Another Interesting Story
Normally, when sales suddenly strengthen, you might expect prices to start rising.
That hasn’t happened in the GTA single-family new-home market.
The July benchmark price for a new single-family home was approximately:
$1,362,433
That was 8.5% lower than a year earlier.
So buyers are returning at the same time that benchmark prices remain substantially below last year’s level.
BILD and Altus Group point to builders continuing to release new low-rise supply, helping keep the market relatively balanced rather than allowing stronger demand to immediately push prices higher.
For buyers, that’s an important combination:
stronger demand without an immediate return to rapidly rising prices.
It doesn’t guarantee prices will stay there, but it helps explain why some purchasers who waited through the downturn may now be reconsidering new low-rise homes.
Meanwhile, New Condo Prices Haven’t Adjusted the Same Way
Here’s another surprising part of the July report.
The benchmark price for a new condominium apartment was approximately:
$1,054,938
and was actually 2.5% higher year-over-year, according to the July BILD data.
At first glance, that seems strange.
Condo sales are extremely weak.
Shouldn’t prices simply fall until buyers return?
Not necessarily.
New construction doesn’t behave exactly like the resale market.
A resale homeowner may decide:
“I need to sell, so I’ll take $50,000 less.”
A developer faces a different calculation.
Land has already been purchased.
Construction has a cost.
Financing has a cost.
Municipal fees have a cost.
Labour and materials have a cost.
If prices fall below the level required to make a project financially viable, the developer may not simply keep cutting prices.
The project may be delayed, redesigned or not launched at all.
That’s one reason weak pre-construction sales can eventually become a housing-supply issue rather than simply a pricing issue.
The GTA Still Has a Lot of Unsold New Homes
Despite the improvement in low-rise sales, this is not a tight overall new-home market.
At the end of July, there were approximately:
18,546 new homes remaining in inventory.
That included:
12,345 condominium apartments
and
6,201 single-family homes.
At the recent sales pace, that represented approximately 36.5 months of total inventory.
That is a lot of supply.
But again, the headline number can be misleading.
Nearly two-thirds of that inventory is in the condominium category.
So a buyer looking for a particular new townhouse or detached home in a specific GTA community may experience a very different market from someone shopping for a pre-construction condo in Toronto.
Are Buyers Turning Away From Condos?
Not necessarily permanently.
Condos still serve an important role in the GTA housing market.
They remain one of the main ways to add large numbers of homes in areas where land is limited.
They can also provide a more attainable entry point than detached housing in many locations.
But the current numbers suggest buyers are becoming much more selective.
The old assumption that:
“It’s pre-construction in the GTA, so someone will buy it”
is no longer enough.
Buyers increasingly want to know:
What is the price per square foot?
What will the maintenance fee be?
What will the mortgage payment look like at closing?
What can the unit realistically rent for?
How much comparable resale inventory already exists nearby?
Is the builder offering meaningful incentives?
And does buying pre-con actually make more sense than buying resale?
That’s a much tougher environment for developers.
Could Today’s Weak Condo Sales Create a Future Supply Problem?
This may be the most important long-term question.
A condo tower doesn’t appear overnight.
Projects sold today may not be completed for several years.
If developers cannot sell enough units to meet financing requirements, projects may not move forward.
That means weak pre-construction sales in 2025 and 2026 don’t only affect today’s market.
They can affect how many new homes are completed several years from now.
This creates an unusual contradiction:
Today: plenty of condo inventory and very weak demand.
Later: potentially fewer new condo completions because fewer projects were able to launch successfully.
That’s why the current condo slowdown matters even to people who have no intention of buying pre-construction today.
Does This Mean Single-Family Homes Are About to Get Expensive Again?
Not necessarily.
Four consecutive months above the 10-year sales average is meaningful.
But the overall GTA new-home market is still recovering from exceptionally weak conditions.
Total July new-home sales remained 40% below the 10-year average, despite the strength in single-family homes.
And the single-family benchmark price remained down 8.5% year-over-year.
So this isn’t the same environment as the peak years when buyers rushed into virtually every new-home release.
A better description may be:
The low-rise market has found buyers again.
Whether that develops into sustained price growth will depend on supply, financing conditions, employment, affordability and how builders respond.
What Should New-Home Buyers Pay Attention to Now?
The July numbers show why buyers shouldn’t treat all “pre-construction” as one market.
A new townhouse in Vaughan can have completely different market dynamics from a downtown Toronto condo.
A detached development in Markham may behave differently from a high-rise project in Mississauga.
And a project already under construction can present different risks and opportunities from one that is only beginning pre-sales.
The HST rebate can be valuable for eligible purchasers, but it should be considered alongside:
the actual purchase price,
builder incentives,
deposit structure,
closing costs,
occupancy timing,
development charges,
and
comparable resale properties.
A large rebate doesn’t automatically make a property a good purchase.
What Does This Mean for the GTA Housing Market?
The July data gives us a useful picture of where buyer confidence is returning first.
It’s not returning evenly.
Low-rise buyers are moving.
Condo buyers remain cautious.
That tells us something important about the 2026 GTA market.
Affordability incentives can bring buyers back, but they cannot necessarily solve every problem affecting every property type.
The HST rebate appears to be having a meaningful impact on eligible new-home purchases, particularly in the single-family sector.
But the condo market is facing deeper challenges involving investor economics, inventory, pricing and future project viability.
Those problems may take longer to work through.
Final Thoughts
The headline number says:
1,018 GTA new homes sold in July.
But the real story is underneath it.
781 were single-family homes.
Only 237 were condos.
Single-family sales were 50% above their 10-year July average.
Condo sales remained 80% below theirs.
That’s not simply a recovering new-home market.
It’s a market splitting into two very different directions.
For buyers, sellers and investors across Toronto, Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Mississauga and the broader GTA, the distinction matters.
At JDL Realty, we believe the question is no longer simply:
“Is the GTA new-home market recovering?”
The better question is:
“Which part of the market is recovering — and why?”
Right now, the answer is increasingly clear:
Single-family homes are leading the comeback. Condos are still waiting for theirs.
Source: BILD
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