(Image courtesy of RESCON)
Most municipalities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, including the City of Toronto, have been given a failing grade in a comprehensive report done by the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative for the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON).
Of the 34 municipalities that were graded, 22 received an F, another five received a D, and the other seven municipalities received a C or higher. Graded leaders were Brantford, which had an A-plus, and Milton, which received an A. Municipalities were graded in five categories related to housing starts and sales.
“The findings of this report are troubling and should set off the alarm bells for policymakers across all three levels of government,” stated RESCON president Richard Lyall. “Housing projects have been shelved, and the industry has hit a wall. The outlook is bleak, and we are trending in the wrong direction. 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.”
The assessments in the report were based on data obtained from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Altus Group. Researchers did a deep dive on housing starts, sales and industry employment across municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Golden Horseshoe region over the first six months of 2025, relative to the same period from the previous four years.
In the first six months of this year, housing starts were down an average of 40 per cent in the 34 municipalities. Condo apartment starts over the first six months were down 54 per cent relative to the 2021 to 24 baseline, while purpose-built rental starts were up eight per cent. Starts for everything other than apartments were down 42 per cent, showing the weakness is not just confined to condos.
In the City of Toronto, starts in the first six months of 2025 were down 58 per cent and sales declined 91 per cent, causing employment to fall by an estimated 10,209 jobs.
“Both the federal and provincial governments have committed to doubling housing starts,” stated Mike Moffatt, an economist and founder of the Missing Middle Initiative. “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.”
The research comes at a particularly important time, as housing unit sales and starts have all but ground to a halt, explained RESCON, which added that pre-construction sales are considered a prime indicator of the market’s health. Pre-construction sales of condo apartments are down 89 per cent and ground-oriented sales are down 70 per cent, which the organization says 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.
Industry employment has also taken a major hit, says the report, which suggests that the reduction in housing starts in the municipalities over the first six months of the year translates into 24,195 fewer person-years of employment, compared to the reference period of the prior four years.
“We are in the midst of the worst housing crisis in a generation,” said Lyall. “While the situation is bad it could get worse if governments fail to reduce the tax burden on new housing.”
