What Shortage? Most Listings in GTA in Years!

The Great Pump and Dump:  Is there a housing shortage in the Greater Toronto Area?

June 23, 2025

Hi all,

Hope you are all staying cool through the quick onset of summer.  The tomatoes and cucumbers sure need this.  Too bad I cannot get out into the yard to see how they are doing.  Too hot.

Anyway, this piece is a little bit longer.  It is two parts really.  A little bit of venting frustration followed by a little bit of review of current market conditions.  In the end, like all free-markets, buyers and sellers will have to come to some kind of agreement for any deals to be made.  That means realtors have the tough job of managing the expectations on all sides.

Since people still need housing, there will be deals out there.  Find a way to finance those deals may be a challenge, but since we started with Right At Home Realty, we now have access to very good mortgage brokers and other professionals to get it done.

If you know anyone who is looking for a deal or wants information about real estate, please give them our number.  We would be happy to talk with them.

Arlene and Berto

Cannex Realty

Right at Home Realty Brokerage

Here we go:

Part One:  The venting

The Great Pump and Dump:  Is there a housing shortage in the Great Toronto Area?

“Pump and dump” is form of financial fraud where the fraudster buys stocks cheaply, generates artificial excitement about those stocks to create a temporary price increase, then sells the stocks before the price goes back down.  Last month I wrote about “Pyramid Schemes”.  Seems lately when I think of the real estate market in the GTA my mind turns to all kinds of ways people who just want place to call home are being sucked into some kind of schemes to separate them from their money, and their dreams.  Maybe it’s the heat?

Some would argue that this is how capitalism works.  I am not arguing against capitalism.  What follows will just confirm that it is the worst system of wealth distribution, except for all the rest.  The second part we will have leave for the brave of heart over some cool drinks at a backyard BBQ.

Capitalism usually means a market-oriented economy in which the production and pricing of goods, as well as the income of individuals, are based on market forces resulting from interactions between private businesses and individuals.  I am in favour of people being rewarded for taking risks with their resources, money and time, but has there been fraud here, or just unfortunate confluence of events and circumstances?  Will the market settle the score, as it does usually?  Answers: Likely yes to all the above.

Let’s take a deep breath, pump the brake, slow the roll, and back up the truck a minute here.  How did we find ourselves in this mess and how are we going to get out of it?  The answers are probably a lot more complicated than any newsletter briefing can do justice, but here is a little bit of current information.

Was there ever a housing shortage?  This seems to be the foundation of what has driven development in the GTA for the last couple of decades.  How anyone could confidently predict (pump) what any society will need in a couple of decades already has the scent of a scheme to me, but I will admit it would have to be a complicated one where you hope all the other parties jump on board.  There is some lobbying to get Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100, see the Century Initiative.  More than double Canada population in less than a quarter of the time it took us to get to where we are?  Can anyone say, “Change Management”?  Part one complete.

So, with the belief that we will be increasing our population everyone got to work making the case for a housing shortage.  Investors, often of foreign origin, developers’, builders’, politicians and city officials’ mouths began watering at the prospect of the trillions of dollars that would be available.

Is that bad?  No, that is what they are supposed to do.  Everyone one was going to make money, and it would be good for everyone.  More work, higher incomes, more housing choices, something else good, and something else good. 

Then what happened?  Well, with higher incomes means more disposable income.  This pressures prices higher as more dollars compete for the goods available.  Construction costs go up.  Fees for land development increase so land costs go up. 

Then COVID happened, the government response was to print and give away money.  For a long time.  Much longer than necessary in hindsight, but again we can discuss at the aforementioned BBQ if you like. 

With COVID immigration numbers dropped.  Makes sense, no one was allowed to travel.  Government, with a mind to making up those lost numbers and always keen to look progressive, treat immigration policy like a water tap they can easily control, and the flood started.  Listen, if you were looking at Canada’s economic “boom” you would want to come too.  Unprecedented number enter Canada; more pressure on prices.

Mix in other unpredictable economic events such as supply chain issues, cost of trade and policy changes to react to the serious “housing shortage” and skyrocketing prices the government ban of foreign ownership, read that as investors leaving the game and taking their profits, and you can see how a simple prediction that we will need more housing units, turns into what we have today. All in all, more dollars chasing fewer things, prices of everything goes up.

Then, the average consumer sees everyone making money by the truck-load and says, “Me too!”, jumps in with both feet and well, now everyone is a real estate mogul.  This cycle seems to happen every decade or so; the last run was just about two decades so easy to see how people thought this was a little different.  It was not.

So what started decades ago as an idea that Canada needed population grown suffered the consequence of poor management combined with death by the thousand knives of unknowns that feed opportunity.  Was it a scheme?  I don’t know but looking around at who drives the fancy cars and lives in fancy homes, and it is not the average Canadian. If it wasn’t, congratulations to those who put their money and labour to work.  Let’s hope making the dream affordable again does not come on the backs of the average Canadian.

Part Two.  A review of current data:

The Toronto and Greater Toronto Area (GTA) real estate market is currently experiencing a surge in housing supply, not a shortage—at least in terms of active listings. As of June 2025, there are over 32,000 active residential listings in the GTA, the highest in recent memory. This includes a significant number of condos, which have been particularly slow to sell.

However, the picture is more nuanced when you zoom out:

Supply vs. Demand Imbalance

• Condo sales have dropped by over 25% year-over-year, while listings have soared by more than 40%.
• New construction is lagging. Housing starts in Toronto are down 22% compared to last year, and condo development has hit a 20-year low.
• Pre-construction units are struggling too—over half remain unsold, and many projects are being delayed or canceled.

️ Affordability Crisis

• Despite the inventory glut, affordability remains a major issue. The average home price in the GTA is still over $1.1 million, and ownership costs consume more than 66% of household income on average.
• The GTA needs about 50,000 new units annually, but only around 40,000 are being built, creating a 10,000-unit annual shortfall.