July was the month sellers stopped showing up. August was the month buyers started to feel it — fewer homes to choose from, and, for the first time in a while, prices that stopped sliding.
The headline numbers
| Greater Toronto Area, August 2026 | Figure | Year over year |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 5,057 | −2.1% |
| New listings | 12,075 | −14.1% |
| Active listings | 24,482 | −11.3% |
| Average selling price | $993,410 | −2.7% |
| Median selling price | $850,000 | — |
| MLS® HPI Composite benchmark | $925,900 | −4.5% |
| Average sale-to-list price ratio | 97% | — |
| Average days on market | 35 | +6.1% |
| Months of inventory (derived) | 4.8 | — |
| Sales-to-new-listings (derived) | 42% | — |
What actually happened
Supply did the talking again. New listings fell 14.1% year over year and active listings — the total pool a buyer can actually shop from — fell 11.3%. That is the second consecutive month of double-digit contraction, and it is now large enough that TRREB itself credits it with holding sales down: transactions were "arguably limited by less choice in some neighbourhoods."
Sales slipped 2.1%. In a market where supply is falling faster than demand, that is not weakness — it is arithmetic.
The more interesting number is the price. The average selling price came in at $993,410, down 2.7% year over year. In July that same figure was down 4.5%. The rate of decline has roughly halved in a single month, and on a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis TRREB describes the HPI Composite as "essentially flat" against July, with the average price actually edging up.
One caution on that improvement. Average price is sensitive to what happens to sell in a given month, and August's mix leaned more heavily toward detached houses than July's did. The HPI benchmark, which controls for mix, is still down 4.5% year over year — barely changed from July's 4.6%. So the honest read is that prices have stopped falling, not that they have started rising. Those are different claims, and only the first one is supported.
Where the softness actually is
The GTA-wide figure hides four quite different markets. By property type, across the region:
| Property type | Sales | Average price | Sales Y/Y | Price Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | 2,399 | $1,288,669 | +0.5% | −1.8% |
| Semi-detached | 439 | $931,665 | +0.9% | −5.0% |
| Townhouse | 832 | $786,817 | −9.5% | −8.6% |
| Condominium apartment | 1,330 | $617,593 | −2.6% | −3.6% |
Detached houses were the steadiest part of the market in August — sales up slightly, price down less than two percent. Townhouses were the weakest by a distance, with sales down 9.5% and average price down 8.6%. Condominium apartments continue to grind along at the bottom, which is the backdrop for anyone watching Humber Bay Shores or Mimico.
Inside the 416
The City of Toronto recorded 1,767 sales in August at an average price of $979,684, against 4,200 new listings and 8,727 active listings. The city's HPI benchmark was $918,400, down 3.7% year over year — a shallower decline than the GTA as a whole.
| Property type | Sales | Average price |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | 550 | $1,525,749 |
| Semi-detached | 159 | $1,110,639 |
| Townhouse | 165 | $797,856 |
| Condominium apartment | 885 | $651,648 |
West Toronto held its price
This is the part that matters most to our clients, and this month the regional data supports what we have been seeing on the ground. TRREB reports Toronto West — the W districts, running from Roncesvalles out through Etobicoke — separately from Central and East:
| Toronto West | Aug 2026 | Aug 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 460 | 493 | −6.7% |
| Average price | $955,789 | $957,474 | −0.2% |
| Median price | $820,000 | $850,000 | −3.5% |
| New listings | 1,043 | 1,086 | −4.0% |
| Active listings | 2,246 | 2,335 | −3.8% |
| Sale-to-list ratio | 98% | 97% | — |
The west end's average price is essentially unchanged from a year ago — down two-tenths of a percent, against 2.7% for the GTA. Properties here also sold closer to asking than the region as a whole, at 98% of list versus 97%. Fewer sales, but the ones that happened held their value.
The gap between the average and the median is worth noting: the median fell 3.5% while the average barely moved, which points to a thinner middle and a few strong sales at the top rather than a broad lift.
Why we don't publish district-by-district numbers. TRREB breaks Toronto West into ten districts, and at that level a month can turn on a handful of transactions — in The Kingsway, Sunnylea or Humber Valley, two or three sales can move an average by six figures. We report the West aggregate, which is large enough to mean something, and we look at your specific street when it actually matters. That is a conversation with real comparables, not a chart.
Rates, and what's behind the numbers
The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on September 2 — a seventh consecutive hold — while warning that tariffs and oil prices could push inflation back above three percent. Borrowing costs are no longer the drag they were two years ago, but nobody should be underwriting a purchase on the assumption of cuts to come.
TRREB's Chief Information Officer Jason Mercer framed the past year as one where "ownership housing in the GTA has remained relatively affordable," with prices dipping while mortgage rates stayed flat. Board President Daniel Steinfeld put the coming trade-off more directly: with inventory tightening, some buyers "may face a trade-off between waiting for greater economic certainty and purchasing before prices move higher."
What this means for you
If you're thinking of selling
September and October are the fall market, and you will be listing into materially less competition than a year ago — roughly 3,100 fewer active listings across the GTA. That is the strongest argument for moving now rather than waiting for spring. It is not an argument for optimistic pricing: 4.8 months of inventory and 35 days on market are not a seller's market, and buyers still have room to walk. Our guide to what it costs to sell in Toronto covers the other half of the decision.
If you're buying
Your leverage is real but shrinking, and the shrinkage is faster than the price data suggests. The thing to watch is not the average price — it's that there are 11% fewer homes on the market than last August. Have financing and a lawyer arranged now, because the constraint is increasingly finding the right house rather than negotiating it.
If you're staying put
Nothing here requires action. A west-end house that was worth what it was worth last August is worth roughly the same today, and values in established neighbourhoods are set over decades rather than quarters.
All statistics from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's August 2026 Market Watch and MLS® Home Price Index releases, with the August 2025 release used for the Toronto West year-over-year comparison; policy rate from the Bank of Canada. Figures are reported as published; months of inventory, sales-to-new-listings and the Toronto West year-over-year changes are our own calculations from TRREB's counts. TRREB periodically restates historical data, so year-over-year comparisons may differ from previously published figures.
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