Slowdown in real estate market could put 100,000 jobs at risk in Ontario: group

A house for sale sign is shown in front of a house in Oakville, Ont., west of Toronto, Sunday, Feb.5, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Richard Buchan

A development industry group is warning that a record low for new home sales in Ontario last year could have a ripple effect on thousands of jobs.

The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD ) on Thursday described 2025 as the worst year on record for new home sales in the GTHA.

Only 240 new homes were sold last December, down 24 per cent from the previous year and 82 per cent below the 10-year average, according to Altus Group, BILD’s official source of new home market intelligence.

For the previous 10-year average for new home sales in the GTHA, a normal December would be 1,327 units.

“Never in the 45 years that new home sales data have been collected for the GTA have we seen just 5,300 sales for an entire year,” Edward Jegg, Research Manager at Altus Group, said in a news release.

Over the year of 2025, there were a total of 5,321 new homes sold, which was made up of 3,247 single-family homes – down 63 per cent from the 10-year average – and 2,067 condos – down 89 per cent from the 10-year average.

As a result, the slow market has the potential to impact thousands of jobs in the province, said Justin Sherwood, Chief Operating Officer at BILD.

“New home sales are down well into the double digits across the province, putting 100,000 jobs at risk in Ontario alone,” he said in a release. He went on to liken it to the 1940s, when there was a collapse in new home construction.

“New home construction is a cornerstone of our economy, yet it has effectively stalled,” he said. “Now is the time to eliminate the HST on all new homes to lower the cost of housing and get buyers back into the market and the industry back to work.”

Earlier this month, The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board said 3,697 homes swapped hands throughout the Greater Toronto Area in December, down 8.9 per cent from the same month the previous year, while activity was also down 0.4 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis from November.

Last year, several experts warned that Ontario’s housing market was only going to get worse in 2026. Especially since new home sales in the GTA also reached a multi-decade low in 2025.

“The one thing for sure is that it’s going to get worse in Ontario. There is no possibility of better,” Ron Butler, an Ontario-based mortgage broker, told CTV News Toronto. “Thinking otherwise, it’s entirely based on hopium.”

Royal LePage’s 2026 market outlook from December predicted that home prices were expected to rise in several major markets across the country in 2026. However, the real estate firm painted a gloomy picture for Toronto, where prices were expected to fall 4.5 per cent, year-over-year.

Victor Couture, associate professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of Toronto, told CTV News Toronto, that it’s likely home prices will continue to decline next year, but he said it’s impossible to predict by how much.

He said that while we are not currently in a “housing crash,” without rapid population growth, very low interest rates or strong economic growth, home prices are not expected to rise significantly or at all.

The good news, Couture added, was that it’s a prime time for new homeowners to enter the housing market

“If you think of a home as an investment, you may have wait a long time before houses are again a good investment in Canada, but if you think of a home as somewhere to live and you expect to stay in the house five to 10 years then it’s a better time now than its been in many years,” he said.

Butler, on the other hand, advised not to buy unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Nobody should buy right now unless they have to. If you are a first-time buyer facing no pressure, do nothing until May or June and see how the markets perform,” he said.

With files from Miriam Katawazi and The Canadian Press