Listings dried up faster than sales — and the balance started to turn.

For two years the story in Toronto has been abundant choice. July was the month that started to change — not because buyers came back in force, but because sellers stopped showing up.

The headline numbers

What actually happened

Sales were essentially flat against July of last year — down less than a percent, which after two years of volatility counts as stability. Prices were softer, with both the average selling price and the HPI benchmark down between four and five percent year over year.

The number that matters is the third one. New listings fell 17.8%. Sellers who spent 2025 testing the market at optimistic prices have largely stopped trying, and the overhang of unsold inventory that defined the past two years is thinning. With sales steady and supply contracting, the share of listings that actually sell has risen — which is the mechanism by which a soft market stops being soft.

TRREB titled its release "GTA Housing Market Tightens in July and Sets the Stage for Price Stability." Board President Daniel Steinfeld put the implication plainly: with sales accounting for a larger share of listings, "buyers may find there is less room to negotiate moving forward," and if the trend holds, "average selling prices could level off in the second half of this year."

Inside the 416

The City of Toronto recorded 2,242 sales in July at an average price of $1,010,836, against 4,980 new listings and 9,310 active listings. By property type:

Condominium apartments remain the softest corner of the market — average price down 1.6% year over year in the 416, with units taking around 41 days to sell against 32 for the market overall. Across the GTA the apartment segment continues to carry the largest inventory relative to sales. For anyone watching Humber Bay Shores or Mimico, that is the backdrop.

The freehold market tells a different story. Detached and semi-detached houses in the 416 sold in numbers consistent with a normal July, and in the west end's established pockets the constraint has never really been demand — it's that very little comes up for sale.

What we're seeing in West Toronto

TRREB's district-level detail is thinner and noisier than the regional figures — in neighbourhoods like The Kingsway, Sunnylea and Humber Valley, a handful of sales can swing a monthly average by six figures, so we're careful about drawing conclusions from it. What we can say from the transactions we're in:

• Well-prepared houses are still selling quickly. The gap between a property that has been properly prepared and one that hasn't is wider now than it was in 2021, not narrower. Buyers have enough choice to be selective and are exercising it.
• Overpriced listings sit, and then they stale. The market corrects a wrong price by ignoring it. The cost of testing a high number for three weeks is not zero — it's the negotiating position you no longer have in week four.
• Buyers are moving faster than they were in the spring. Less inventory coming to market means the good listing that appears on Thursday no longer waits.
• The top end is digesting the April tax change. Toronto's municipal land transfer tax increase above $3 million took effect April 1, and at that level it's being priced into offers.

Rates, and what's behind the numbers

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on July 15, with the next scheduled announcement on September 2. Rates at this level are no longer the drag on the market they were two years ago — which is part of why sales have stabilised even as prices have drifted.

TRREB's Chief Information Officer Jason Mercer noted that "recent news has been more positive than expected," with growth and jobs data surprising to the upside. On the supply side, CEO John DiMichele repeated the board's long-standing argument that "restrictive zoning, outdated rules, high taxes and fees, and approval delays are making housing more expensive" — the structural problem underneath the monthly noise.

What this means for you

If you're thinking of selling

The window where you were competing with a wall of other listings is closing. Fewer new listings means less competition for attention in September, historically one of the two strongest listing months of the year. If you were waiting for spring, it's worth pressure-testing that assumption with actual numbers for your street — the calculation may have changed. Our guide to what it costs to sell in Toronto covers the other half of the decision.

If you're buying

You still have leverage, and 97% sale-to-list and 32 days on market say so. But the direction of travel is against you, and the specific properties worth owning in West Toronto have never been the ones that sit. Get your financing arranged and your lawyer lined up now so you can move on the right house rather than think about it.

If you're staying put

Nothing here requires action. A four-percent move in a regional average is not a signal about your particular house, and the value of a home in an established west-end neighbourhood is set over decades rather than quarters.

Julian Pilarski — Sales Representative, Royal LePage Real Estate Services Inc., Brokerage. Top 1% in Canada, with a focus on West Toronto's most distinctive homes.