A new report gives Toronto a failing grade when it comes to building housing. Here is why

A new study finds Toronto is falling far short of its 2025 housing targets, falling 67 per cent behind in the first half of the year.

Toronto is falling well short of its housing targets so far in 2025 and a new report suggests it may not be alone, with 22 of the 34 municipalities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area receiving a failing grade amid a “bleak” outlook for the industry overall.

The report was prepared by researchers with the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative and commissioned by the Residential Construction Council of Ontario.

It compared housing starts across the first six months of 2025 with the same period over the previous four years, starting in 2021.

The findings were “troubling” and “should set off the alarm bells for policymakers across all three levels of government,” RESCON President Richard Lyall said in a news release.

Overall, housing starts were down 40 per cent in the 34 municipalities studied, with condo apartments leading the decline (down 54 per cent).

Things were even more stark in the City of Toronto, where housing starts were down 58 per cent.

Condo apartment starts were down a staggering 80 per cent in Toronto, falling from an average of nearly 8,000 during the first six months of the previous four years to just 1,606 so far in 2025.

The report says in the first half of the year, Toronto was roughly 67 per cent behind the housing target set for it by the provincial government.

That translates into a shortfall of nearly 10,000 units.

RESCON says the slower pace of construction likely meant 10,209 fewer construction jobs in the city, part of a wider loss of an estimated 24,195 jobs across the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe area.

“Housing projects have been shelved and the industry has hit a wall. The outlook is bleak, and we are trending in the wrong direction,” Lyall said in the release. “We need governments to take concrete action to lower the tax burden and modernize the process to kick-start the industry. Our economy will be in dire straits if we do not act quickly.”

Toronto was one of 22 municipalities to receive a grade of F from researchers while another five municipalities received a D.

Only seven of the 34 municipalities studied, received a grade of C or higher.

Milton and Brantford were the only municipalities to receive a grade of A or better.

The report says that while the construction of rental apartments (up eight per cent overall) appears to be “holding up better,” the weakness in the industry “is not just confined to condos,” with a 42 per cent across the board decrease in the other categories.

In the report, researchers point out that housing starts are a “lagging indicator” as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) only considers a project to be “started” when the building’s foundation is fully complete.

That, combined with a slowdown in new home sales, means “things are going to get worse before they get better,” researchers say.

“Across our 34 municipalities, pre-construction sales of condo apartments are down 89 per cent and pre-construction ground-oriented sales are down 70 per cent,” the report states. “This is a clear indication that Ontario’s housing situation will get worse before it gets better, and that market weakness is not isolated to the condo market.”

The numbers come on the heels of another CMHC report released earlier this month, which suggested Toronto was the “epicentre of weakness” for residential construction in the first half of the year.

That report warned that Toronto was on pace for its lowest annual housing starts total in 30 years.

“Both the federal and provincial governments have committed to doubling housing starts. Unfortunately, housing starts are falling, and new home sales show that further declines in starts are about to come. All three orders of government must act to address the housing crisis,” Mike Moffatt, an economist and founder of the Missing Middle Initiative, said in a news release.

Here is a look at how researchers graded the 34 municipalities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area when it came to housing:

• Ajax (housing starts down 100 per cent) – F
• Aurora (down 40 per cent) – F
• Brampton (down 50 per cent) – F
• Caledon (down 44 per cent) – F
• East Gwillimbury (down 100 per cent) – F
• Georgina (down 60 per cent) – F
• Halton Hills (down 77 per cent) – F
• Markham (down 3 per cent) – D
• Milton (up 113 per cent) – A
• Mississauga (up 16 per cent) – D
• New Tecumseth (down 3 per cent) – C
• Newmarket (down 98 per cent) – F
• Oakville (down 39 per cent) – F
• Pickering (up 11 per cent) – C
• Richmond Hill (up 77 per cent) – B
• Toronto (down 58 per cent) – F
• Vaughan (down 95 per cent) – F
• Whitchurch-Stouffville (down 11 per cent) – F
• Barrie (down 65 per cent) – F
• Innisfil (down 91 per cent) – F
• Brantford (up 272 per cent)- A+
• Guelph (down 90 per cent) – F
• Burlington (up 87 per cent) – B
• Hamilton (down 65 per cent) – F
• Cambridge (down 26 per cent) – F
• Kitchener (down 16 per cent) – D
• Waterloo (down 75 per cent) – F
• Clarington (down 73 per cent) – F
• Oshawa (down 87 per cent) – F
• Whitby (down 74 per cent) – F
• Peterborough (down 92 per cent) – F
• Niagara Falls (down 5 per cent) – D
• St. Catharines (up 35 per cent) – C
• Welland (down 10 per cent) - D