One of the challenges with talking about the real estate market is the idea that there is, in fact, “the” real estate market. The reality is that real estate markets differ considerably based on location, housing type, price ranges and attributes.

Despite this, the way the media – and some real estate agents – present real estate news is often in the context of what’s happening in “the” market. This means that the overall impression most people have of what’s happening in real estate is based on averages across multiple geographies and housing types with a wide range of prices as well as attributes.

Even the more nuanced stories typically only go down a level. A headline that says “Condo prices plummet” may have detail about the average price for the market and then break it down further into what condo apartment units are selling for on average. The same article would likely not make any distinction between the attributes of condo units and how those attributes change the average selling price. A person who owns a three-bedroom condo in Yorkville may wrongly assume that the value of their unit has collapsed, when it is in fact the one-bedroom units in Liberty Village that have seen their average price drop dramatically.

When we work with clients who are buying or selling real estate in the high-end market, the headlines and stories about “the” market are almost completely irrelevant. For properties in the $5M-plus range, it is a completely different market than the one discussed in most real estate news articles.

Let’s take a look at what’s going on in the high-end market in Toronto.

Wait, is there such a thing as the high-end market?

Right off the bat, we almost fell prey to the same issue we discussed above. As of the end of August 2026, there are 234 freehold homes for sale in Toronto for over $5M. Actually, scratch that. One of those properties is the most expensive home on the market right now, listed at a cool $989M. It was previously listed at $899,000, so it appears the listing agent made a mistake and added a few extra zeros when he adjusted the price.

So, we have 233 freehold homes for sale in Toronto for over $5M. The problem with drawing any inferences from what’s happening in “the” high-end market for the entire city is the range of properties within that dataset.

• One of the homes is listed for $48M and one is listed for $5M. The $5M home is a three-bedroom, three-washroom house at Sheppard and Midland, while the $48M home sits on more than six acres of ravine land in the Bridle Path neighbourhood of Toronto. Both are technically redevelopment opportunities, but whatever is happening at the $5M level is far different than the market at the close-to-$50M level.
• The 233 homes for sale over $5M are spread across 38 neighbourhoods of Toronto, but almost half of them are in just three neighbourhoods. Bridlepath-Sunnybrook-York Mills accounts for 22% of the dataset, St Andrews-Windfields is 12% of the dataset and Forest Hill South is also 12% of the dataset. While we could talk about what “the” $5M-plus market is doing in Toronto, if we applied that logic to Long Branch or Guildwood or any of the 24 neighbourhoods with just one or two of those listings, it wouldn’t be very accurate.
• Even the type and style of the homes for sale over $5M vary considerably. While almost all are detached homes (with just a sprinkling of multiplexes and vacant land in the mix), some are two-storey homes, some are three-storey homes and some are bungalows. They have five bedrooms on average, but one is a multiplex with 21 bedrooms and another is a tear-down with just one bedroom!

With such a range of price points, locations and types of homes, there is no one buyer for “the” high-end market in Toronto. We can feel pretty confident in making that statement, but it isn’t helpful for a seller who is considering putting their singular home up for sale.

Whenever we work with clients in the high-end market, we do a deep dive into the stats and comparables to be able to tell them what’s actually happening with homes similar to their place. Here’s an example of what that looks like with the neighbourhood of Lawrence Park South.

Oh, what a year!

The high-end market can be slower moving than the market as a whole. There are simply fewer buyers who are looking for homes over $5M than who are looking in the $1M range. While sellers benefit from less competition than at lower price points, there are correspondingly fewer buyers as well. As such, whenever we are working with a high-end seller client, we look back at what’s happened in their area in the past year.

In Lawrence Park South, we had 81 MLS listings with activity in the past year (September 2025 to August 2026) on the MLS system. Activity can be a listing, a sale or everything in between. That seems like a lot of activity for homes over $5M in one neighbourhood of Toronto, so let’s dig in a bit deeper.

Who wants to sell anyway?

With 81 individual MLS listings for over $5M in Lawrence Park South in the past year, it’s not a surprise that some didn’t sell. The level of failed sales, though, might surprise you, as 47 of those 81 MLS listings were terminated without selling. That’s 58% of the activity on the market. If you took your family into an apple orchard to pick your own apples, and 58 of the 100 trees had signs on them saying “NOT FOR PICKING”, you’d certainly come away with the perception that there aren’t actually many trees available, despite the size of the orchard. If we add in the expired listings (10 out of the 81) and the suspended listing (just one out of the 81), there’s another 14% of the market that isn’t actually available or sold. The apple orchard just added another 14 trees to the “no picking” section, so now 72 out of the 100 trees are unavailable.

Surely there are some places that sold?

Just 11 out of the 81 listings actually sold in the past year. That means about 14% of all of the activity on the market resulted in sales. One example we looked at had been on the market for six years with the same agent, so it’s clear that the prestige of listing a high-end home doesn’t always – or quickly – translate into sale commissions. Out of the 100 trees in our apple orchard, there are 13 bare trees that people had picked clean.

You’ve got dozens of choices. Well, one dozen.

There are 11 properties for sale over $5M in Lawrence Park South at their original list price, plus one more that has changed its price since listing. That’s an even dozen options in the neighbourhood (about 15% of the 81 MLS listings with activity) and, to use that apple orchard analogy again, it means that only 15 out of the 100 apple trees are actually available for picking.

Enough with the apple trees.

Analogies can be useful, but they can also break down when we get into the real analysis of what happened. Let’s talk specifics about the activity in this $5M-plus market of Lawrence Park South over the past year and what it means.

Despite having 81 MLS listings with activity in the past year, a number of those listings are for the same property. While it appears we’ve had a lot of things happening with over 80 MLS listings showing up in the search, when we filter for terminations, relistings and other changes, we actually just had 39 properties that were active in the past year in Lawrence Park South.

As we discussed above, 11 sold while still listed at $5M or more, while two more eventually sold after being relisted below $5M. In terms of the 39 properties, once we filter out the noise, it means that 13 sold over the course of the year, which is just 33% of the market. Put another way, one in three properties successfully transacted.

There are 12 houses out of the 39 properties that are still for sale, though if we include the ones that have relisted and dropped their list price below $5M, we have two more. With 14 out of 39 properties still for sale, that means that 36% of properties continue to try to sell.

The remaining 12 properties in our activity pool are now all off the market in various fashions. Seven of them were terminated and are not coming back on the market, with four more that expired with no further reappearance. This is largely just a technical difference, as a termination is an active cancellation of a listing, versus an expiry, which is an automatic removal from active listing when the contract term ends. Finally, we had one listing that was suspended, which is required when a seller needs to stop showings for more than a day or two. The property in question has been suspended for more than two months, so it might be an unofficial termination that just hasn’t been properly updated. Put these off-the-market properties together and they equal about another 31% of the market.

Here’s what “the” high-end market in Lawrence Park South looks like.

While it isn’t exactly 33/33/33, the review of the $5M-plus market in Lawrence Park South over the past year basically shows that a third of the properties sold, a third are still for sale and a third gave up and are off the market.

The properties that sold ended up selling for about 87% of their original list price, and five of them required multiple listing attempts to sell. They took about 60 days to sell on average, including any relisting attempts.

For the places still for sale, the current average days on market is 213 days, with a range of 12 days to 468 days. This is markedly different from the 60 days on average for homes that did sell, so we see that when the pricing is off, properties at this price point can sit a long, long time. Right now, nine of the 14 properties for sale have been listed for more than 180 days.

This sort of analysis is very specific to a given neighbourhood and needs to take into account lots of different factors. If you’re considering buying or selling in the $5M price range, you need to work with agents who know how to tell you what your market is doing, rather than just talking about the market. If that sounds appealing, then get in touch with us!

Most homes sold in Toronto, the GTA and Ontario as a whole are listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system. They are advertised publicly, buyers arrange showings, offers are submitted and the eventual sale becomes part of the market data used by agents, appraisers, lenders, buyers and sellers.

Not every property is sold this way though, and some owners find buyers privately, while others are approached by neighbours, friends or agents with interested clients. The property may never be advertised, photographed or opened to the public.

These are commonly called “off market” sales and while the term sounds exclusive and potentially lucrative, particularly to buyers hoping to purchase a home before anyone else hears about it, that isn’t always the case.  Sometimes that opportunity is real and other times, it simply means a seller accepted an offer without finding out what the broader market might have paid.

So, are we on or off?

An on market property is listed on MLS and made available to the agents and buyers using that system, while an off market sale takes place without that public exposure.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that no real estate agents were involved in the deal. An agent may approach an owner on behalf of a buyer, market a property quietly within their network or help negotiate a deal after the seller has already found someone. The buyer and seller could also handle the transaction privately through their lawyers.

The important distinction isn’t whether someone earned a commission but whether the property was exposed to the broader market.  If it was, then it was on market; if not, then it was off market.

Why stay off the MLS?

Selling a home can involve repairs, painting, decluttering, staging, photography, showings and open houses, so there are sellers who are quite happy to skip the process if a buyer is willing to purchase the property as-is, offer a convenient closing date and let them leave behind whatever they don’t want.

Privacy can also matter because a public listing announces that the owner is selling, places photographs of the home online and makes the eventual sale relatively easy to find. Other sellers are attracted by the possibility of avoiding commission, although saving on the cost of selling doesn’t help much if the property also sells for substantially less than it could have.

There can be perfectly reasonable reasons to sell off market, but the convenience needs to be weighed against what the seller may be giving up.

Wait, what would I be giving up?

MLS is an advertising system, but it is also a price discovery system because buyers see the property, compare it with the alternatives and decide what they are prepared to pay. If several buyers are interested, they may compete with one another and if nobody is interested, the seller receives a fairly direct message about the price.

An off market seller doesn’t get the same test and while they may receive an excellent offer, perhaps even more than the property would have sold for publicly, they can’t know with much confidence whether another buyer would have paid more.

The seller is trading competition for some combination of privacy, convenience and certainty. That may be worthwhile, but it should be a conscious decision rather than an assumption that a private offer must be a good one.

Off market also doesn’t automatically mean below market. A private property can sell for less than market value, more than market value or somewhere in between, but without public exposure we have less evidence of what the rest of the market might have done.

At the end of the day, if a seller has a price in mind they consider fair, an off market sale that achieves that price may still be considered a success by that seller.

Pick an area, any area.

In order to see how many off market deals are taking place in a given area, we look at what has taken place on the MLS system as well as what is showing up on the Land Registry. If there were no off market deals, then the two would match perfectly. If we see more sales on the Land Registry than show up on MLS, we know that some deals took place off market and won’t show up in any of the “official” market data from TRREB.

We’ve chosen the Kingsway South MLS Community in west Toronto. Broadly speaking, this neighbourhood is bounded by Bloor Street West at the south, Montgomery Road to the west, Dundas Street West to the north and the Kingsway and Kingsway Crescent to the east.

Know your limits.

While we can see information in the Land Registry, it is more limited than what we see in the MLS system. This is due both to the nature of the transactions as well as by design.

Deals can be registered through lawyers to mask the actual sale price, while some transfers are recorded for $0 or $2 because the property is moving between spouses, family members, estates, corporations or related parties rather than being sold conventionally. Properties can also have more than one parcel identification number, or PIN, which can cause one transaction to appear more than once.

Land Registry information, which Realtors commonly access through Teranet’s GeoWarehouse platform, also tell us much less about the property and the transaction because we don’t see the listing history, photographs, room details, condition, days on market or offer process. We may see an address, registration date and amount of consideration, but not much of the story behind them.

There can also be a delay before a completed transaction appears in GeoWarehouse, so we can’t count every row as a separate arm’s-length sale and declare everything without an immediate MLS match to be off market. It would give us a nice clean answer, but it wouldn’t be a particularly accurate one.

Eighty-two versus eighty-two.

Our MLS search produced 82 sales, with an average sale price of $2,685,780 and a median of $2,515,500.

GeoWarehouse also returned 82 records, which looked like a perfect match until we compared the actual properties and found that only 44 appeared in both searches. There were 38 properties found only in the MLS results and 36 found only in GeoWarehouse.

The GeoWarehouse list included 11 transfers registered for either $0 or $2, along with duplicate or related entries. One property on Queen Marys Drive appeared first as a $0 transfer and then two days later as a $3.8-million transfer under the same PIN, while a property on Kingsway Crescent appeared twice at $4 million because two PINs were involved.

Once we removed the nominal transfers and accounted for the duplicate records, GeoWarehouse contained approximately 70 unique properties with meaningful reported consideration. Both searches may have started with 82 rows, but they were clearly not describing the same 82 transactions.

Sold and closed aren’t the same thing.

MLS normally records when a deal becomes firm, while the Land Registry records when ownership is transferred, usually on closing, and those dates can be separated by weeks or months.

A house on The Kingsway was reported sold on MLS in April 2026 for $1.65 million, with the transfer appearing in May. A property on Willingdon Boulevard sold in March for $2.51 million, but the transfer wasn’t registered until June, while a house on Strath Avenue sold in October 2025 for $5.75 million and didn’t appear in the Land Registry until March 2026.

That difference matters when we look at any specific period because a property can sell through MLS before the beginning of our search and close after the period begins, causing it to appear only in GeoWarehouse. At the other end, a property may sell through MLS near the end of the period but not yet have closed, so it won’t appear in GeoWarehouse at all.

Several of the MLS-only properties sold in June and July 2026, so the most likely explanation is not that GeoWarehouse missed a completed sale but that those deals hadn’t closed when we pulled the report.

Even the reported prices didn’t always match. A house on Shand Avenue was reported sold on MLS for $3.45 million, while GeoWarehouse showed $3.4 million, and a house on King Georges Road sold on MLS for $4.15 million compared with registered consideration of $4.12 million.

Matching the two systems therefore requires more than looking for the same price in the same month.

So, how many were off market?

After removing nominal transfers, duplicate records and unusual transactions, we were left with approximately two dozen residential properties that appeared in GeoWarehouse but not in our original one-year MLS search.

Those are possible off market sales, not two dozen confirmed private deals. Some may have sold through MLS before the beginning of our search period and closed afterward, while others may have address variations or registration details that make the match less obvious.

If every remaining candidate had sold off market, they would account for roughly 23% of the combined conventional sales identified through the two searches. That is the highest plausible figure rather than the final answer, and it will fall as earlier MLS sales are matched to later Land Registry transfers.

What the comparison does show is that MLS captures the large majority of ordinary residential sales in Kingsway South, while a smaller but still meaningful number of properties appear to change hands privately. It also shows why claims about large numbers of hidden sales need to be treated cautiously because Land Registry records include genuine private deals, but they also include delayed closings, family transfers, nominal transactions and properties with more than one PIN.

What disappears from the market statistics?

A genuine off market sale won’t appear in TRREB’s sales volume, average price, median price, sale-to-list ratio or days-on-market figures, so the published statistics don’t include every conventional property sale.

That doesn’t make the data unreliable though, as the MLS still captures most normal transactions and provides considerably more information about each one. It simply means we need to understand what is included before deciding what the numbers are telling us.

Should you be on or off?

For most sellers trying to achieve the highest possible price, public MLS exposure remains the sensible starting point because it puts the property in front of the largest pool of buyers and gives those buyers an opportunity to compete.

An off market sale may still make sense when a seller values privacy, certainty or convenience more than testing the full market. For buyers, it can provide access to a property with less competition, but “off market” is not another way of saying “bargain.”

Convenience has value and so does competition, which means both sides should understand what they may be giving up before choosing one over the other.

If you’re considering selling a home and aren’t sure which approach works best for you, then we’d be happy to look at what’s happening in your market (both publicly and privately) and give you our thoughts.  Similarly, if you’ve been looking for a home and wonder if there are options you just aren’t seeing, talk to us about how we track down opportunities like that for our buyer clients.  In either case, get in touch with us to arrange a time to chat!

The real estate industry generates an awful lot of statistics.  While average days on market, sale to list price ratios and other stats offer useful insight into what’s going on in a given market, it’s prices that really command attention.

Whenever you see headlines about prices rising or falling, they are based on stats.  The biggest provider of those stats are real estate boards and they do their best to provide accurate information.  Sometimes, however, the data can be skewed by inaccuracies – and sometimes they’re inaccurate on purpose.

It’s time to talk about that perineal favourite word in real estate – location.

Location, location…wait, what was the third thing?

While the old adage about real estate being about “location, location, location” may still have some truth to it, you can also say that all listings have three locations.  This is because when it comes to the Multiple Listing Service (or MLS) where listings are posted, each property has three location designations.

The first is MLS Area, which is the broadest and largest geography.  Within the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s boundaries, we have seven of these MLS areas – Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, Durham, Dufferin and Simcoe.

Each MLS Area then has smaller districts within it, called the MLS Municipality.  Despite the name, many MLS Municipalities are not in fact municipalities.  If you look within Toronto, there are dozens of MLS Municipalities, following numbered naming conventions based on which part of the city they are located.  All areas in the east of the city start with E0 followed by a number, central locations are C0 followed by a number and western areas are called – you guessed it – W0 followed by a number.  Outside of Toronto the municipality tag makes more sense, as they do somewhat correspond.  For example, the MLS Area of Peel has three MLS Municipalities – Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon.

Finally, the smallest, most local MLS segments are MLS Communities.  If you’re looking in Toronto or other densely populated areas, these MLS Communities are recognizable neighbourhoods, such as Mimico, the Beaches, or Bayview Village.  Outside of urban centres, however, the MLS Community may be an entire town or city.  For example, Georgetown is an MLS Community and there isn’t any smaller segmentation in the data provided by TRREB.

Below is a map that gives you a sense of what these MLS segments look like across the GTA.

Get to the teleporting building already.

Now that we’re clear on the idea of MLS Areas, Municipalities and Communities, let’s talk about why real estate agents sometimes put the wrong designation on their listing.

Below is a picture of 500 St. Clair Avenue West.  It’s a lovely condo building located on the corner of Bathurst and St. Clair in Toronto.

IMAGE COURTESY OF CONDOS.CA

It’s located at the intersection of two MLS Municipalities (C03 and C02) and four MLS Communities (Humewood-Cedarvale, Forest Hill South, Casa Loma and Wychwood).  While it may be right beside another MLS Municipality and bounded by three other MLS Communities, make no mistake, 500 St. Clair Avenue West is located in C03, Humewood-Cedarvale.

We have a client who we’ve helped buy in the building who’s considering selling their unit.  As part of our research into determining the value of the unit, we looked at the 10 most recent sales in the building.  Seven of the listings correctly identified the unit as being located in Humewood-Cedarvale, while three of them had the MLS Community listed as Forest Hill South.

Did these three units somehow teleport to the eastern side of Bathurst?  Perhaps they all had very large balconies that were built across the street so they technically were partially in Forest Hill South?  Sadly, the answer is no, and the reason these units were misrepresented as being in another MLS Community was for just one reason – price.

So, you’re 6’2 on your online dating profile but 5’9 in real life?

Much like the person pretending to be something they aren’t in order to attract attention, some real estate agents choose to misrepresent the location of their listing to make them appear more valuable.

Let’s look at the differences between Humewood-Cedarvale and Forest Hill South.

First, here’s the stats for the sales of condo units in Humewood-Cedarvale so far in 2026.

• Average sale price: $454,909
• Average days on market: 46.7 days
• Sale-to-list price: 96.5%

Compare that against the stats for sales of condo units up to May 30, 2026 in Forest Hill South.

• Average sale price: $1,229,287
• Average days on market: 28.9 days
• Sale-to-list price: 97.8%

If you could wave a wand and move your condo unit from Humewood-Cedarvale to Forest Hill South, it would be very helpful!  You’d sell for about $775K more, it would take about 18 days less to sell and you’d get 1.4% closer to your list price.

But it’s the same location!

Despite some agents choosing to misrepresent the location of their property for sale, it isn’t actually in another MLS Community.  It’s not as if a buyer thinks they’re buying in Forest Hill South when they’re really buying in Humewood-Cedarvale, right?

The reason some agents take this approach is to appeal to a presumably more affluential buyer pool.  While anyone searching for condo units for sale in the building would see all of the units, regardless of what MLS Community they’re listed under, anyone who is looking for a condo unit in Forest Hill South would see inaccurately listed units in their search results.

It is questionable as to how impactful such deceitful location listings are in terms of sale price.  After all, while it may encourage some buyers from the neighbouring MLS Community to cross the border and view the listing, the reverse is true for buyers searching in the accurate MLS Community.  It seems likely that buyers looking in the actual area you’re located within would be more eager to purchase the unit.  At the end of the day, one thing is certain – it makes the data less accurate for everyone.  How inaccurate?  Let’s check.

It’s just $177,000 off, what’s the big deal?

When we looked at the data for one month when two of these misrepresented listings were sold, here’s what we found.

The data showed six sales in Forest Hill South, which an average sale price of $1,045,000.  Two of those sales were in fact in Humewood-Cedarvale and shouldn’t have been included in the dataset.  When we remove those, the average price rose to $1,223,000.  That means the average sale price was under reported to the tune of about $177,000.  This is just one month in one MLS Community and it is unknown how prevalent this practice is on MLS listings.

Given the importance of real estate stats in both reporting on the market and calculating current values for real estate, such misrepresentations of location do tremendous harm to the accuracy of the data.  We’ve only ever seen this take place where an agent is pretending it is located in a higher-priced MLS Community, so it just serves to bring down the average in those higher-priced areas and under-report the actual sales taking place in the real MLS Community the property within which it is actually located.

The ability of unethical agents to misrepresent their properties has persisted for a long time and it is our hope that the loophole will be changed soon.  While it may have been onerous in the past to have someone check each MLS listing to ensure accuracy of the location, it seems simple enough now given the technology we have available.

Whether you’re buying or selling, experienced agents know that things aren’t always what they appear.  In our work with our clients on both sides, we make sure that the data we’re relying on to inform our decisions is accurate.  If that sounds appealing to you, get in touch with us to discuss how we can help you buy or sell!

Every once in a while, an MLS listing includes something that makes us wonder whether we’ve had too much coffee.

At 385 Centennial Road in Scarborough, it isn’t the number of bedrooms. There are none. It isn’t the renovated kitchen either, because there is no kitchen.  It’s the seller, which is listed as follows.

His Majesty the King in right of Ontario as represented by the Minister of Infrastructure

Apparently, the King owns an acre of vacant land in Port Union.

Before picturing him reviewing offers at Buckingham Palace, let’s explain what is actually going on—and whether anyone could build something there.

Long live the legal entity!

Let’s start with the disappointing news.  The King does not personally own this property.  “His Majesty the King in right of Ontario” is the legal name used when the Province of Ontario owns real estate. The words “in right of Ontario” mean the Crown is acting as the provincial government, not as the monarch’s private real estate holding company.

The Minister of Infrastructure represents Ontario in the sale, Infrastructure Ontario manages the provincial real estate process, and a real estate brokerage (CBRE) is marketing the property.

The land registry actually still uses the former wording, “Her Majesty the Queen in right of Ontario.” That doesn’t mean the property was recently transferred between members of the Royal Family. The Crown continues when the monarch changes, so the wording around ownership simply changes along with it.

This also helps explain why the MLS listing shows annual property taxes of one cent. The Province is tax-exempt.  Sadly, the buyer does not inherit the royal tax plan.

Why does Ontario own it?

The property is a wooded, irregularly shaped parcel of approximately 1.08 acres beside Highway 2A and close to Highway 401.  Governments regularly buy land for highways, road widening, drainage, utilities and other infrastructure.

Once the work is finished, they can be left with oddly shaped pieces that are no longer needed.  That is very much what happened here given the shape of the property and its location beside a highway corridor.

I know times are tough, but why’s the government selling it?

When Ontario no longer needs a property, it can declare the land surplus. The property is generally offered through government and public-sector channels first. If nobody there buys it, Ontario can put it on the open market.

That’s how a provincial property eventually appears on MLS with the King as seller and a commercial real estate brokerage handling the listing. The land is now listed for $445,000, down from its original asking price of $750,000.  More than an acre in Toronto for less than the price of a condominium sounds like a tremendous deal, but there’s a catch – the zoning.

Can you build a house on it?

Not under the current zoning.

The property is zoned “Open Space–Natural”, which is intended mainly for natural and open-space uses. A detached house is not currently permitted. Neither are townhouses, condominiums or a conventional subdivision.  As such, this isn’t a matter of buying the land, choosing a floor plan and asking the King where to send the deposit.

The zoning is more supportive of uses such as parks, natural areas, agriculture, community gardens, certain outdoor recreation or education uses, public utilities and transportation-related uses.

A neighbouring owner might also buy it for additional privacy, outdoor space or control over what happens next door. That would not automatically turn the land into a residential building lot, but it could still have value to the right person.

Sure, sure, but everything eventually has housing built on it, right?

While the current zoning doesn’t allow it, it is true that a buyer could try to change the zoning and other planning permissions.  It isn’t going to be easy, however.  That process would require environmental, transportation, servicing and natural-heritage studies. The property is beside a highway, heavily wooded and irregularly shaped, so even if some development were eventually approved, the entire acre might not be usable.

As such, we’d say that rather than approved development land, this is land with a possible development theory.

The difference is several years, a collection of consultants, a substantial amount of money and no guarantee the City will say yes.

Is anyone actually going to buy it?

With a public listing history going back to November, 2023, this clearly isn’t a piece of land that’s moving quickly.  The most likely buyer is someone who sees value beyond building a house tomorrow.  That could be a neighbouring owner, a conservation organization, a public agency, a utility, an urban agricultural operator or a developer comfortable taking on significant planning risk.

For everyone else, it could become a $445,000 place to admire squirrels.

The King’s name makes the listing entertaining, but it doesn’t determine the property’s value – the zoning does.  Vacant land is not valuable simply because there is a lot of it and its value depends on what can legally, physically and economically be done with it.  In real estate we sometimes refer to that as the highest, best use.  In this case, the highest, best use is quite limited, so the price reflects that reality.

At the end of the day, the Crown ownership tells us who is selling, the land registry gives us clues about where the property came from and the zoning explains why an acre of Toronto land is available for $445,000.  Despite the name on the listing, calling the King probably won’t help you build a house there anytime soon.

If you’re curious about the idea of buying vacant land and building a home on it, then understanding what is possible is a crucial part of the process.  We love working with clients who are exploring this idea and if that sounds like you, get in touch with us to discuss working together!

Spend enough time looking through real estate listings and eventually you’ll come across something that seems like it wandered into the wrong category.

• A sushi restaurant
• A convenience store
• A nail salon
• A dog grooming business

At first glance, it can seem strange to see businesses listed by real estate agents. After all, a business isn’t a house. You can’t inspect it the same way. You can’t compare it to the one down the street with the newer kitchen and the finished basement. You can’t walk in, admire the light fixtures and decide whether the family room works for Christmas.

Business sales live in a different world but that doesn’t mean real estate agents can’t be involved and in Ontario, they often are part of these sales. The rules around real estate trading are broad enough to include businesses, leasehold interests, fixtures, stock-in-trade and other goods connected with the operation of a business.

While real estate agents can sell businesses, the real question is whether they should do it.  After all, there is a pretty big difference between being allowed to do something and being good at it.

Let’s look at how selling and buying businesses through real estate agents works, starting with what’s actually being sold.

Wait, if there’s no land, how is it real estate?

One of the first and most confusing aspects of real estate agents selling businesses is that the businesses may not actually have any real estate attached to the sale.  How can real estate agents sell something without any actual real estate?

The current legislation that governs real estate sales in Ontario is called TRESA, which stands for the Trust in Real Estate Services Act.  Before all legislation came with pithy titles, they were more descriptive and the legislation that governed real estate up until a few years ago was called REBBA, or the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act.  As the name implies, real estate agents were also very much intended to be involved in the sale of businesses.

As of today’s date, (June 12, 2026), the MLS system has over 1,500 business for sale with real estate agents in the Greater Toronto Area, with about half of them located in Toronto.  These are businesses that don’t include property and are strictly business sales.  This article focuses on the business sale side of the equation as it is far less understood.  If a business does have a building or land included with the transaction, then the value and aspects of that land are considered in addition to the value of simply the business and its inclusions.

What’s your budget?  Actually, never mind, we’ll find you something.

If we exclude the 50 or so listings that are for sale for $1 – because the agent just doesn’t know the price to list it for sale at – then they range in price from $6,000 to up to $2.2M.  If that seems like a heck of a range, it’s because what is being sold varies tremendously.

At the low end of the scale, the business for sale has extremely limited assets and is most likely not making much money.  Typical types of businesses in the under $50K list price range are beauty salons, small cafes, small convenience stores, small medical practitioners (orthotics, optometry, etc.) and so forth.  The physical location is small, they have low value equipment or stock and what you’re buying is basically the fact that consumers are (presumably) familiar with the business at that location and may use it.

On the high end of the scale, you’re looking at businesses that have very large physical locations, with significant assets and reoccurring revenue.  Some examples of businesses in the $2M plus list range are 10,000 sf indoor playgrounds, countertop manufacturing businesses, established brewery restaurants and so forth.

Let’s get into the factors that impact the list price and value of a business.

The location is often the business.

The reason business sales and real estate overlap is usually pretty simple – the business is tied to a place.  After all, a restaurant is not just a collection of tables, chairs, ovens and saucepans. It is also the corner it sits on, the people walking by, the signage, the parking, the patio, the lease, the rent, the zoning, the landlord and the fact that customers already know where to find it.

Consider a hair salon with loyal clients, six chairs, trained staff and a lease in a strong plaza.  That’s not just selling scissors and mirrors, but an ongoing concern.  This is also true for a convenience store beside a school, condo building or busy transit stop, that isn’t just selling shelves, chips and fridges.

In many cases, the real estate component is not a side issue. It is the main issue.  This is true even if the business may not own the building or any land, as we’re discussing here.  While some businesses you see in your neighbourhood and near your work may own the property they operate out of, many are in fact simply tenants.  With such businesses, there is often lots of value in the commercial lease they hold with their landlord. If the lease cannot be assigned, the landlord does not approve the buyer, or the rent is about to jump to a level that kills the profit, then the “business” may not be much of a business at all.

Buying a business is not like buying a house.

 When you buy a house, you are mostly trying to answer a few big questions.

• Do we like it?
• Is it worth the price?
• Can we afford it?
• Is there anything wrong with it?
• Will it be good for us for the foreseeable future?

A business purchase has all of those questions, plus a bunch more that are much harder to answer.

• Does the business actually make the money the seller says it makes?
• Will the customers stay after the owner leaves?
• Are the employees staying?
• Is the equipment owned, leased, financed, broken, obsolete or excluded?
• Is the inventory included?
• Can the lease be assigned?
• Are there permits or licences that need to transfer?
• Are there supplier agreements?
• Is this a franchise?
• Does the franchisor need to approve the buyer?
• Is the business being sold as assets or shares?

That is where these deals can get messy. You are not just buying something you can see, you’re buying a collection of rights, relationships, records and assumptions.  While some of those things are valuable, some are not, and some disappear the minute the current owner walks out the door.

…and goodwill to all!

There’s a concept in business valuations that is either a critical part of the value or a way for a seller to push the price up well beyond what it is actually worth.   Let’s talk about “goodwill”.

Goodwill is a magical concept that comes into play when the whole is worth more than the parts.  It involves other nebulous concepts like reputation, presence and track record.  If you encounter a business that is selling (or trying to sell) for more than the value of what is being sold, then the excess is often ascribed to “goodwill”.  To be clear, that isn’t goodwill towards the seller from the buyer, it is positioned as an intangible but nonetheless valuable component of a business that the buyer must pay for in addition to the more easily quantified aspects.

Let’s think about a business that is highly transferable, such as a well-run franchise in a good location, with established systems, trained staff and clean books.  A business like this may sell for much more than the value of its parts, because it may very well be able to keep running without much drama after the sale.

Other businesses are really just the owner, wearing a business costume.  The clients come because they like the owner, the suppliers give good terms because they trust the owner, the staff stay because of the owner. The recipes, systems, relationships and daily problem-solving all live in the owner’s head.

If the seller is the reason the business works, the buyer needs to understand what likely happens when that seller is gone. A few weeks of training after closing may not magically transfer years of relationships, habits and local goodwill.  This is why “goodwill” is such a slippery concept.

Goodwill attached to a location can be valuable, goodwill attached to a brand can be valuable, goodwill attached to repeat customers, strong reviews, staff systems and consistent operations can be valuable.

Goodwill attached entirely to Frank, who has personally known every customer since 1997, is a different thing.  No offence to Frank.  Frank may be fantastic, but unless Frank comes with the sale, the buyer should be careful about paying too much for Frank’s goodwill.

Let’s get to the most real estate-y part of this whole thing.

 For many small businesses, the lease at the existing location is effectively what is being sold.  It’s not the paint colour or the cappuccino machine, or the cute logo on the front window.  All of these things can be done by a business owner at a new location, often for less cost.

The lease is what makes someone wanting to run a certain type of business in that specific location decide to buy an existing business rather than just start one.

When we work on behalf of our business buyer clients, there are lots of questions we ask about the lease.  Some of these questions are about how long is left, what the rent is, what additional rent or TMI is payable, whether there are renewal options, whether the lease can be assigned and whether the landlord has any right to change terms when the business is sold.

A cheap rent in a good location can create real value, while a short lease with no renewal option can destroy it.  Let’s not forget that a landlord who will not approve the buyer can stop the deal entirely.

There are often aspects in a commercial lease that allows only a very specific use for the property, so if you have plans on adjusting what the business you just bought does at that location, you may discover you can’t actually do it as per the terms of the lease.

Commercial leases are considerably more complex than residential leases, and there are far less protections on both sides.  If you make assumptions that the same rules apply to your commercial lease as you’ve experienced with residential leases, you’ll be in for a world of trouble.  You could buy the business then six weeks later be informed by the landlord that the building is being sold and your lease is terminated in 90 days.  You could encounter a problem with the HVAC system at your new premises, reach out to the landlord to get the AC working again and be told that replacing that system is entirely your cost, as per the terms of your lease.

In our work with landlord and tenants on the rental of commercial properties or the purchase and sale of businesses at commercial properties, we often see inexperienced buyers where they treat the lease in far too casual a fashion.  They talk about the equipment, the menu, the sales and the “potential”, then leave the lease review until later. That’s backwards, because if the lease does not work, the rest of the deal may not matter.

Let’s talk numbers.

Business listings can sometimes have a generous relationship with reality.  You may see phrases like:

• “Owner states sales are much higher.”
• “Lots of cash business.”
• “Great potential.”
• “Easy to increase revenue.”
• “Seller only works part-time.”
• “Expenses could be reduced.”

While all of that maybe true, buyers should not pay for maybe, and if a seller wants to be paid for business income, the seller should be able to prove business income. That means actual records, not just a confident conversation at the back table after the lunch rush.

A buyer should review tax returns, financial statements, point-of-sale reports, bank deposits, HST filings, payroll records, supplier invoices, rent records and utility bills.  Many small businesses have challenges with recording and reporting their financial transactions and that can make those businesses effectively unsellable.

This isn’t because potential buyers are being difficult, it’s because if a business is being sold based on profit, the profit needs to be supportable. If the seller says the business makes far more money than the records show, the buyer has a problem.

Actually, scratch that – it’s not just the buyer.  The lender has a problem, the accountant has a problem, the lawyer may have a problem. In fact, it’s likely that everyone has a problem, except perhaps the seller, who would very much like to be paid for income that was not properly documented.

Small time or big time?

One of the big components of a business sale that determines whether this is a simple, smaller sale, or a larger more complex sale is whether it is an asset sale or a share sale.

 In many smaller business transactions, the buyer purchases the assets of the business. That may include equipment, inventory, leasehold improvements, the trade name, website, phone number, that magical goodwill and certain contracts.

In other cases, the buyer may purchase the shares of the corporation that owns the business and those are not the same thing.

With an asset sale, the buyer may be able to choose the assets they are buying and avoid taking on certain liabilities. With a share sale, the buyer may be stepping into the corporation’s history, including contracts, tax issues, employee obligations and liabilities that may not be obvious at first glance.

There can also be major tax differences for the seller, so this is not the part of the deal where anyone should be winging it.  While we can help coordinate the process and make sure the right conditions are included in the agreement, the question as to whether an asset sale or share sale is better it very much lawyer and accountant territory.  We work closely with our client’s law firm and accounting firm when preparing for a purchase or a sale of a business, so if you’re considering either, talk to your people.

In addition to the real estate agents involved, business sales often involve the buyer, seller, two lawyers, two accountants, a landlord, a lender, a franchisor, suppliers and sometimes a licensing body. If no one is managing the flow of information, the deal can get bogged down very quickly and a good real estate agent helps keep things moving.

Business sales can absolutely involve real estate agents, but they should not be treated like ordinary real estate deals.  The buyer is not just buying furniture, equipment and a sign over the door. They may be buying income, lease rights, goodwill, staff continuity, contracts, systems and the hope that customers keep showing up after closing.

That requires more due diligence than a typical property purchase and if we’re blunt, it also requires a bit more humility from everyone involved.  We need to help with our area of expertise and not advise or interfere in other aspects.  The buyer needs to verify the numbers, the seller needs to prepare proper records, the lawyer needs to review the structure and documents, the accountant needs to look at the tax and financial side and so on.

Within our team we regularly work with clients who are looking beyond standard residential purchases and into investment properties, commercial opportunities and more complex real estate-related transactions.  If you are considering buying or selling a business where the location, lease or real estate component is a key part of the value, get in touch with us. We can help you understand the real estate side of the transaction, ask better questions, and connect the dots with the other professionals who should be involved.  Let’s talk!

One of the few constants in real estate recently has been the low levels of buyers, at least compared to the available number of properties.

The number of sales in Toronto that took place in 2025 was down about 8% from the level of transactions in 2024, which itself was lower than 2023 and so forth.

If we look at the level of sales that took place in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, it’s down about 9% compared to the same time period a year ago (Q4 2024 and Q1 2025), so things are not getting better.

There’s a saying in real estate, which is “Sellers live in the past, buyers live in the future” and that seems to very much be the case now. We have sellers who are stubbornly holding onto what their home used to be worth and we have buyers who are shaking their heads and refusing to pay what the home is worth now, in the fear that the market will keep dropping.

What makes buyers hold off on making a purchase? That’s a complicated question, but there are three big factors that impact buying decisions on a macro level. Let’s get into them.

Numero Uno – The Cost of Borrowing

Only about 10% to 15% of purchasers in the GTA do so without borrowing money in the form of a mortgage. As such, the interest rates that are charged have a big impact on the carrying cost of the property.

Borrowers have the choice between a variable rate mortgage or a fixed rate mortgage and which is most popular does shift based on the perceived risk of rate changes over time, as well as how that risk is factored into the rates being offered by lenders.

In general, if there is uncertainty, borrowers tend to favour fixed rates, so they know how much it will cost them over the length of the term of their mortgage. As such, in the past year, we’ve seen more people shifting to fixed rate mortgages, as reported by CMHC in the 2025 Year-In-Review report. Variable mortgages likely make up about 40% of the pool of borrowers, with the remainder in fixed rate mortgages.

The variable rate that banks offer is directly impacted by the overnight rate charged by the Bank of Canada, which is effectively the rate as which banks can borrow from the BOC. In addition to the variable mortgage rate banks offer, the overnight rate also directly impacts HELOCs and other variable lending that uses the bank prime interest rate to determine the rate charged.

As we write this article in May, 2026, it has now been close to two years since the Bank of Canada started dropping the overnight rate. In July 2023, the rate was set at 5% and until June 2024, it remained there. From June 2024 onward until October 2025, we saw a cutting cycle, where rates dropped down from 5% to 2.25%.

Since October 2025, we’ve remained at that same 2.25% level. Our latest BOC of announcement on April 29, 2026 saw the overnight rate stay at 2.25%, which means it is the 4th announcement in a row with no change to the rate. Put another way, it’s been six months of no change to the cost of borrowing, at least on the variable interest rate side of the mortgage equation.

If we look at fixed mortgage rates over the last six months, the average 5 year fixed posted mortgage rate has also remained unchanged. These rates are impacted by bond yield and lender pricing, not the overnight rate. While there are lots of different terms for fixed mortgages, the 5 year term remains very common, and the posted mortgage rate for that term has stayed constant at 6.09% since October, 2025.

The posted mortgage rate is different than the discounted rate that lenders actually offer, currently around 3.69% to 4.09%, but in general fixed mortgage rates have remained relatively unchanged, just like the variable rate.

To summarize, the cost of borrowing in the last six months has basically remained the same, and the next couple of months will likely see that continue.

On the variable rate side, the BOC announcement a couple of days ago that kept the overnight rate at the same 2.25% we’ve had over the past six months means variable rates will not move over the next six to eight weeks. For fixed rate mortgages, the forecast for bond yields is mostly flat, with perhaps a slight increase, so those mortgages will also likely not change much through May and June.

If the cost of borrowing has been steady for the past six months, with it likely to remain unchanged for the next couple of months, then why are buyers holding off?

Factor Number Two – Prices

If we’re clear that buyers are not holding off on their purchase decision because it’s getting more expensive to finance homes, or because they are worried it will get more expensive shortly, is it because of the price of real estate?

While no one would argue that our real estate is inexpensive, it’s been costly for a long time now. Perhaps it’s because prices are rising, so despite the same interest rates for mortgages, the size of the mortgage – and the cost to carry it – are preventing buyers from jumping into the market.

Here’s the average price for real estate in Toronto from October 2025 to March 2026. We don’t have the April data yet, but it hasn’t skyrocketed.

You can see that in the six months of data here, the average price dropped in November, December, January and March, with an increase in February. In October 2025, the average price in the city was $1.076M, and as of the end of March 2026, it was $1.02M. That’s about a $56,000 drop, so on average, it actually costs less to buy now than it did six months ago. With borrowing costs remaining the same, the cost of your mortgage payment is down on average, because you have a lower mortgage due to the lower purchase price.

If buyers were holding off because they saw the market crashing, with lower prices every month, it would make sense. After all, no one wants to purchase an asset that is worth less and less as time goes on. The past six months saw a typical seasonal change, with the holidays and dead of winter seeing lower average prices before a slight, but temporary bump as we headed into spring. The drop from October to March of $56K is about a 5% difference from high to low, and that’s a far cry from a market crash.

Here’s a chart that shows the average price in Toronto for all of 2024, 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. A lot of fluctuations, but absolutely not a crashing market. In fact, if we compare the price at the end of March 2026, which was $1.02M, with the price at the start of January 2024, which was $952K, Toronto’s market has risen 7% in the past two years and a bit.

If you’re looking at the chart and you’ve been waiting for a significant drop in average prices so you can buy, you’ll view it as a reason to keep waiting. In the same vein, if you’re hoping to buy real estate to see it increase in value significantly over time, the chart says there is no rush for you to jump into the market. Both of those interpretations speak to the public perception of the real estate market, which is the third factor influencing buyer decisions.

Point The Third – Perception

If the cost of borrowing has remained unchanged in the past six months, and the cost of real estate has dropped by over $50K on average – but with no consistent trend or market crash – why are buyers waiting?

Our answer is that the perception of the value of owning real estate in Toronto and the GTA has fundamentally shifted in last five years. Prior to COVID and the turmoil of our recent economic, military and climate challenges, the way we viewed real estate was significantly different than it is now.

After years of consistent price appreciation in the 2000s and beyond, there was a perception amongst the general public that real estate always goes up. With such a belief in place, as well as historically low interest rates and a healthy economy, buyers seized the opportunity to make a purchase.

If the general consensus was real estate always goes up, the rude awakening of the past couple of years has resulted in a new, equally inaccurate consensus, which is that real estate is never going to go up again. There are some people who believe Toronto and GTA real estate markets will experience a significant crash in the near future, but that has always been the case. The more impactful shift in belief that is impacting our level of sales is that a significant amount of people believe that real estate won’t ever go up in value.

The effect of this belief is a lack of urgency, as there is no rush to buy a property when prices will be the same – or perhaps even lower – in a week, a month, or a year from now. In a way, the lack of change in the cost of borrowing reinforces this belief, as it definitely isn’t getting more expensive to finance your purchase. With no absolute end in sight to the current level of interest rates being offered, it is like a sale at a store that seems to be perpetual. If you can’t get to the store this week, or next week, don’t stress about it because the same sale prices will be there whenever you get around to it.

Perception does shift over time and in many ways it is the most impactful of the three factors that influence when a buyer decides to make a move. The cost of borrowing and the price of real estate influence that perception, but if we’re experiencing a time of scarcity and economic uncertainty, buyers are fearful of making a move at the wrong time.

As long as we have significant uncertainty about what is coming next, how our economy will fare and whether our jobs are secure, major decisions will be difficult to make. Given the still lofty heights of the price of real estate in Toronto and the GTA, that means buyers will remain on the fence until a clear picture of what’s coming next is revealed.

The people who are buying and selling in these uncertain times are doing so because they have to make a move, not because the timing is ideal. If you are one of those people, who don’t have the luxury of waiting until you know for sure what’s coming next, then you need a real estate agent who understands the market and how to get you the best possible result. Get in touch with us to talk about the next steps!

We’re starting to see some bidding wars and homes selling over list price in certain areas we’re working in with clients, and we thought it was worth examining how common that is these days.

We pulled the data for freehold properties in Toronto, York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Dufferin and Simcoe to see exactly where these three day markets exist and to what extent.  Let’s get into it.

Toronto – Home of the 11%

When we look at the City of Toronto, it is by far the place where the three day market is most prevalent.

As of April 17, 2026, there have been 2,465 sales in Toronto so far this year.  276 of these sales happened in three days or less, which means that 11% of the Toronto market transacted that quickly.  The homes are generally three bedroom, three washroom houses.

The average sale to list price for these 276 homes was 106%, so these sellers received, on average, about $76,000 more than their list price.  Whether this was a result of the sellers holding back offers until a certain date and then receiving a bully offer they accepted, or simply a quick acting buyer who offered more than list price shortly after listing, Toronto was one of two parts of the GTA where these quick sales also netted sellers more than list price.

Durham – 2^nd Place Ain’t Bad

The only other part of the GTA that saw an average sale to list price of over 100% was Durham.

As of April 17, 2026, Durham has had 1,608 sales in the region so far, and 106 of those sales happened in three days or less on market.  This means about 7% of all of the sales in 2026 in Durham happened on a very quick basis, and the average sale to list price was about 102%.

With an average list price in Durham of about $910,000 for these quick sales, it means that these sellers not only sold quickly, they made about $14K more than their list price.  Just like Toronto, these homes had three bedrooms and three washrooms, which means they’re quite suitable for a family.

York – Close, but No Cigar

While all five of the remaining areas with the GTA saw a number of these quick sales, none of them had a sale to list price ratio of over 100%.  York came closest to the mark of these five, with a sale to list price ratio of just under 100%.

There were 1,917 sales in York Region in 2026 as of April 17, 2026, and about 5% of these sales happened in three days or less.  These 96 homes sold for, on average, about $6,000 less than their list price, so while they sold quickly, it wasn’t the same sort of market where sellers got more in a very quick fashion.  They were slightly larger homes than we saw in Toronto and Durham, with four bedrooms and four washrooms on average.

Peel – 92 sales and 95% over Three Days

As of April 17, 2026, Peel has seen 1,883 sales this year and just 92 of those sales took place in three days or less.  That works out to about 5% of the total sales, and on average, the sellers of these four bedroom, three washroom homes got about $10K less than their list price.  With 95% of properties selling over that three day window, the Peel market was definitely not the hottest in the GTA.

Halton – 1% Under List Price

Halton is our first part of the GTA to see a list to sale price ratio of 99%, which worked out to sellers taking about $11K less than the list price.  As of April 17, 2026, Halton has seen 1,187 sales and just 71 of those of those homes sold in three days or less.  That means that just 6% of the properties sold so far this year (which were three bedroom, three washroom homes on average) sold in a very speedy fashion.

Simcoe – The Second Smallest Level of Sales and the Smallest Homes

Simcoe has had 1,475 sales in 2026 as of April 17, 2026, with just 3% of those sales taking place in three days or less.  These 40 homes were also the smallest homes to sell in that timeframe in all of the GTA, with an average size of three bedrooms and two washrooms.  They sold for about $8K less than list price, but with the lowest average sale price in the GTA, that number below list isn’t too surprising.

Dufferin – Just Three Houses Sold in Under Three Days

Our final area to review is Dufferin, which saw just three of the 148 sales so far this year (as of April 17, 2026) sell in under three days.  That works out to 2% of the total sales and while the sale to list price ration was 96%, with just three sales, that number isn’t reliable.  Similarly, the $27K under list price that these sellers took in order to sell so quickly seems reflective more of buyers pushing hard, rather than a hot market.

Nobody buys or sells the market as a whole.  Whether you’re looking to purchase a property or sell one – or both – you’re always dealing with a specific housing type, area and price point.  While what is happening in “the” market can be interesting, it is often not the same as what is happening in any of these sub-markets.  We hope you found this review helpful, and that seeing which parts of the GTA have been seeing some quick sales – and the impact that has had on the prices for these sales – gave you a better understanding of the differing markets we’re seeing.

If you are thinking about making a move, then you need to know what’s happening in your market, not the market.  Get in touch with us and we’ll show you exactly what is happening where you live and where you want to live.

Every couple of years we seem to see Toronto increasing their municipal land transfer tax (LTT) on luxury properties.  It happened back in 2024, when increased rates were imposed upon sales in Toronto of properties over $3M, and it’s just happened again.

As of April 1, 2026, we have new rates for the LTT on the sale of properties over $3M in Toronto.  The provincial land transfer tax has not made any similar changes at any point, but the city of Toronto is rapidly increasing the cost to buy within the Toronto boundaries.

We looked at the anticipated increased revenue the city would make when they did this back at the start of 2024, we said they’d bring in about $27M in additional revenue as a result of the increases.  That sounds like a pretty significant amount, but keep in mind that back in late 2023, the City of Toronto’s updated Long Term Financial Plan and staff report showed an estimated $1.5 billion starting pressure for the 2024 operating budget and $29.5 billion in capital needs, which both form part of a $46.5 billion shortfall over the next 10 years.  The forecasted $27M would have brought in less than 2% of the amount needed to address the operating budget shortfall.

Given the city remains in difficult financial circumstances, it is clear that the increased tax didn’t help in a material fashion.  The latest increase is actually going to be far less impactful, as it is mostly increases of around 1%  for those higher price bands.

Let’s look at the new changes and how much additional money it could bring in – plus how many deals need to be lost as buyers decide to purchase their high end homes outside of the city.

Apples to apples.

We’re primarily focused on resale properties in our team and the data we can access is largely limited to residential resale properties.  As such, all of our analyses below are based on that data.   We’re after some broad (but accurate) implications of the new LTT rates, but we aren’t considering:

• non-MLS transactions
• builder/direct new-home and new-condo closings
• commercial / industrial / multi-residential / vacant land transfers
• other taxable conveyances the City records but that do not show up in our records

While some of the specific numbers of the implications of the new LTT rates will be understated, our analysis does paint a clear picture of what it means to the resale market.  Now that we’re officially covered, let’s get into it.

First, a history lesson.

We’ve created a handy chart to show the recent history of the Toronto Land Transfer Tax.  The orange column is what it was for about six years, and the blue columns show the rate increase amount that was put into place as of January 1, 2024.  The green column is the brand new rate increase amounts that apply to properties bought in the city as of April 1, 2026.

There have been no changes made to the land transfer tax due on the purchase of any properties up to $3M, but if you’re at that level or higher, we saw it go from a flat rate of 2.5% on any amount above the $3M level, to a graduated system.  The higher the price point, the higher the rate you’re paying on that portion of your purchase.

The latest round of increases have added about 1% to most of the price bands, with a range from 0.9% to up to 1.1%.

It’s all marginal.

A reminder that the land transfer tax is a marginal tax bracket, which means that for any price above a threshold, you pay:

• The full tax from all lower brackets
• Plus the tax on the portion that falls inside the current bracket

For example, a $1.2 million purchase does not pay 2.0% on the full $1.2 million. Instead, it pays:

• 5% on the first $55,000 = $275
• 0% on the next $195,000 = $1,950
• 5% on the next $150,000 = $2,250
• 0% on the remaining $800,000 = $16,000
• Which would bring the total municipal land transfer tax to $20,475.

This is relevant as we look at what impact these higher tax brackets will have on the sales taking place moving forward.

The past ain’t the future.

A caveat we often give is that what happened in the past is not necessarily indicative of what will happen in the future.  That being said, we need to base our analysis on certain assumptions, so the big assumption in our analysis here is that we’ll see similar types of transactions and numbers of transactions in 2026 as we did in 2025.  Here’s how the 23,475 sales in the city of Toronto were spread across the various price bands.

A few things about the above data are very relevant to our review.

First, 97% of the sales that took place in Toronto in 2025 were under $3M, which means the change that just took place is utterly irrelevant to those sales.  The Toronto LTT rate for these properties has not changed since 2017 and they can go merrily about their business.

The next thing worth pointing out is that the 740 sales that were in the $3M plus price bands last year were mostly in the $3M to $5M range.  59% of the sales were in the $3M to $4M band and another 22% were in the $4M to $5M band, so over 80% of the sales were in that $3M to $5M range.

If we assume that 2026 will see a similar spread of deals as we saw in 2025, how are these higher land transfer tax rates in those price bands going to bring in to the city in increased revenue?

It’s more, but it’s not a lot more.

We pulled the average price for each of the price bands for the sales in 2025 and then calculated the Toronto LTT for each of those bands.  This is relying on averages within each price band so it will not be 100% accurate, but it is enough to give us an idea of what 2026 will look like for increased revenue with the new increased LTT rates.

The city would have brought in about $450M in municipal land transfer tax in 2025 based on these sales.  With the new higher rates for the higher end price points, that means an estimated revenue for 2026 of about $458M, which works out to about $8M more in land transfer tax revenue for the city.

As we see very few sales at the $5M or above price point, the bulk of this $8M comes from sales in the $3M to $5M range.

$8M is still better than a kick in the pants, right?

The final aspect of the new LTT tax rates worth discussing is the fact that our model makes the assumption that the same level of sales take place in Toronto despite increasing costs for those buyers.  While it may be unlikely that a lower price point buyer will choose to buy outside of the city to save on the land transfer tax, we have had clients who considered the difference in closing costs significant.

At the higher price points that this latest round of LTT rate increases impacts, the difference between what you pay in Toronto versus surrounding municipalities amounts to significant dollars.

For example, a $5 million buyer in Toronto would pay about $272K in total LTT, of which $112K is the provincial portion.  If the buyer chose to purchase instead in another city such as Oakville, they would save $160K on their closing costs.  That’s a significant amount of money and while the latest increase in Toronto’s LTT rates doesn’t materially change the amount they pay, it is reaching levels that could result in some buyers deciding they’d rather put that money into a home purchase outside of Toronto.

While it is complicated to project how many lost deals it would take for the city to not see that projected $8M increased LTT from high end sales, we know that any purchase that moves outside of the city loses the entirety of the MLTT, not just the portion at the higher end.  Our calculation is that it would take about 67 of these high end deals leaving the city for that projected $8M in extra LTT revenue to disappear completely.

We regularly work with buyers and sellers impacted by decisions like this latest Toronto LTT rate increases, and it’s important that your agent understands the factors that influence the high end and luxury market in the city.  If you’re looking to buy or sell in the $3M plus range and want agents that understand how that segment actually works, get in touch!

It’s pretty well known that real estate agents are somewhat prone to hyperbole.  We’ve written in the past about the secret codewords that agents use to try to convince buyers a home is appealing.

While people are pretty good at seeing past the flowery phrases dressing up the listing, it can be much harder to decipher the differences between two seemingly similar properties.  After all, numbers don’t lie, right?

So, numbers can lie.

Real estate is full of numbers and while the price is arguably the most important one, lots of the other numbers aren’t always what they seem.  Consider the following examples:

• Two 4-bedroom homes, where one has three good-sized bedrooms on the 2^nd floor and a spare bedroom (or den) on the ground floor. Suitable for a family with young kids, closets in all the rooms and able to fit beds, dressers and so forth.  The other property has one huge bedroom on the 2^nd floor, with massive walk in closets and a spa bathroom retreat and three smallish “bedrooms” in the basement, one of which has no windows.  Great for a couple with no kids who want hobby rooms in the basement.
• Two 785 sf condo units, each with two bedrooms and two washrooms. The first is a rectangular shaped split wing layout with two 10×12 bedrooms at either end of the condo, with ensuite washrooms off both, one of which opens to the hallway so guests can access it without going through a bedroom.  The other is a small L shape, with a full bathroom right beside the entrance door, a hallway leading down to a small bedroom with an angled wall, and a primary suite beside it with the washroom took into the other side of the angled wall.

Two properties can appear nearly identical on paper if you look at just the numbers, but there are often considerable differences between them when you look closer.

According to Webster’s Dictionary…

Numbers aren’t the only area where seemingly identical properties can differ significantly.  We have some standards that apply to how real estate agents can describe different attributes, but they aren’t always followed to the letter.  Some agents consider a kitchen “newly” renovated if it happened in the last five years, whereas others follow the more stringent approach of it literally just got renovated before we listed the home for sale.

While flat out misrepresentation is relatively rare, people can hold very different definitions of what certain descriptions mean.  Where do you fall on the below scales?

• Is a walk-in closet a large room with a dressing bench in the middle and custom shelving on all sides, or is a walk in closet any closet that has enough space for you to walk inside and cuddle your clothes?
• Is a family size kitchen a big room with tons of cabinetry, an extended island with spots for stools, as well as a separate eating area with a kitchen table? Or is it a narrow galley style that has a bistro table and two small chairs at the end beside the dishwasher?
• Are high-end appliances delivered from Europe and installed by a team of four who wear white booties when they enter your home, or are they a mismatched group of premium versions of different appliance brands that you see in most homes?
• Is the only hardwood that can be called hardwood flooring actual hardwood such as oak, hickory or maple, or is engineered hardwood with a thin layer of hardwood veneer also hardwood flooring?

We could go on and on, but when no specific details are provided on any claimed “feature” of a home, it is likely there are big differences between two listings who both claim they have it.

Where did I put my glasses?

Finally, there are homes that seem to have identical features as per the listing, but it turns out that not all things are created equal.  Which would you prefer?

• If you’re invited to enjoy your private backyard oasis with a pool and hot tub, do you envision an inground pool, with a hot tub section you can swim into from the pool? What if it is an aboveground pool with a hot tub in a different section of the backyard?
• Is it a media room if there are couches (that don’t come with the house) and a first generation low resolution digital projector (that is generously being included), or is a media room a custom built space with built-in furniture, sound baffling and a state of the art video and audio system?
• If both properties have a balcony, does it make a difference if one faces the Gardiner and is loud and dusty all year round, whereas the other faces the lake and views of the setting sun?

The above examples may seem pretty far fetched but trust us, they have all happened.  The quality, age and inclusions in a given attribute can make a huge difference in the value – or lack thereof – to potential buyers.

We’ve looked at a lot of properties for our clients and with our clients.  If we had to estimate the numbers, it would be somewhere between “too many” and a bazillion.  As a result, we’re very good at spotting differences that the numbers and images may not make clear to the general public.

This is surprisingly relevant on the sale side work we do, as a big part of setting your list price is comparing your home against other properties.  We often encounter situations where we see significant differences between our seller’s home and the recently sold and currently on the market competition.  This allows us to make sure we don’t leave money on the table, or mistakenly over price and not get the result our clients need.

If you’re looking to make a move and want to work with agents who know what to look for when comparing properties, get in touch with us!

As you might expect with the cost of real estate in the GTA, most of our buyer clients have a mortgage for a portion of the purchase price.  Depending on their situation it can range from as much as 95% of the purchase price to half or less.

Bank data suggest that about one‑fifth of home purchases are all‑cash and consumer surveys and industry estimates place the share of cash‑offer transactions in the broader range of 15–25 %. In the Toronto area, the percentage of purchases made entirely in cash has climbed into the low 20s and we’d estimate for the GTA that roughly one in five buyers pay for a property with no mortgage.

While lenders in Canada have done very well loaning money to people to buy real estate, it doesn’t mean they don’t follow some rules to make sure the property being purchased is worth the amount the buyer is asking to borrow.

Lenders use appraisers for this purpose, individuals who are trained and accredited in the ability to assess the value of real estate.  While we wouldn’t go so far as to see appraisers are the natural enemies of real estate agents, it can be a difficult relationship.  Real estate agents work in real time on the ground with their clients and have a current and up to date understanding of the market and the value of homes.  Appraisers work from closed deals only and in a fast moving market (with prices either going up or down over the course of weeks), the appraised value they come up with can make the deal price seem wrong.

In addition, while appraisals are often described in scientific terms as if they are concrete, absolute statements of fact, they are more of an art than a science.  Three different appraisers will provide three different values for a given property, sometimes with significantly different valuations.  When was the last time you saw a scientific experiment or theory accepted as valid when the results keep changing?

When an appraisal comes in at higher than the purchase price, it generally doesn’t cause problems.  The buyer is thrilled at the idea that they actually got a bargain on the home, the lender has no issues with proceeding with the mortgage at the agreed upon ratios and everything moves forward.

When the opposite happens, then things can get messy.  Let’s talk about what happens when someone buys a home and the appraisal from the lender comes in at less than what they agreed to pay.

First, the basics.

A buyer submits an offer for a property at a price they are willing to pay. By definition, this is now market value, as the home went up for sale (on “the market”) and a buyer offered a purchase price that the seller accepted. Boom, market value established.

If the buyer has all the money for the property, then that’s it. As discussed though, most buyers have a mortgage of some amount, though, and this is where things get a bit more complicated.

A lender (be it a bank, credit union, private lender or your Aunt Sally) makes the decision to lend based on how much you make, how much you owe and your past record of borrowing responsibility. When we work with clients, we guide them through this process before we get too far along in the purchase journey. By providing job documentation, bank information and submitting to a credit history review, our clients are pre‑approved for a certain amount at a certain interest rate. A pre‑approval can be looked at as the lender saying, “OK, I’m comfortable loaning you this much money based on your situation.”

When a prospective buyer finds the home that fits their needs and budget, we negotiate the best price and terms possible and buy the home. If we can, we write the offer conditional upon financing approval. In a strong seller’s market, it can be very challenging to buy a home with any conditions, but in any market the logic remains the same.  We want financing approval because the buyer needs to turn their pre‑approval in general terms into approval of a specific property.

Here’s an example.

Our client buys a home listed at $729,900 for $800,000 in multiple offers. While we would have preferred to have a financing condition in place, with other offers in play that had no conditions, our client made the decision to remove the financing condition. They had a pre‑approval up to $900K in place and had a down payment of $160,000 ready. This meant they had 20% of the purchase price and wouldn’t need to pay CMHC fees.

Though our client is willing to pay $800K for the property and has been pre‑approved for up to $900K in a general sense (based on income, debt levels and credit history), the lender must be comfortable that the property is worth that $800K. In essence, the lender needs to be confident that when it comes time to sell the property and recover their loaned amount (the outstanding mortgage due), they will be able to get their full amount back.

The lender sends in the appraiser and in a few days comes back with some bad news: the property that our client has bought firm for $800K is appraised at $750K, a shortfall of $50K.

Our client expected the purchase would look like this:

• Purchase price: $800K
• Mortgage: $640K (80% of $800K)
• Down payment: $160K

After the appraisal comes in lower than the purchase price, the lender says, in effect, “We were willing to loan you 80% of the purchase price, with you providing a 20% down payment. We are still willing to loan you 80% of the appraised value, but you need to come up with the shortfall.”

The purchase now looks like this:

• Purchase price: $800K
• Mortgage: $600K (80% of $750K)
• Down payment: $200K

As a result of the appraisal value, our client needs to find an extra $40K in order to close on the deal.

They may be able to find another lender to offer that $40K at a higher interest rate (as second mortgages are second in line after the primary lender for repayment and are therefore riskier) but it will depend on what the changed interest rate does to their debt‑servicing ratio. If they were already at their limit, then finding another lender may be difficult or impossible.

When a buyer has made a firm purchase of a property and runs into financing problems, it is possible that the deal won’t close. If the buyer can’t get the money to close on the closing date, then the seller won’t hand over the keys. To be clear, the buyer has a legal obligation to close on the deal as per the agreed‑upon terms. A legal obligation isn’t the same as actually having the money, though.

The deposit that was provided at or shortly after the purchase date (when the price was agreed upon and the papers signed) is held by the seller’s real estate brokerage. If the buyer cannot close on the deal, then the seller has the option of showing damages and keeping some or all of the deposit that the buyer provided. Determining damages can be complex and lawyers will be involved on both sides to determine if and how much of the deposit can be kept by the seller as a result of the buyer failing to close as they are legally obligated to do.

That sounds…messy.

It’s a messy situation and one that should be avoided at all costs. It truly is something neither side wants, as both the buyer and seller wanted to do the transaction and agreed upon terms that one side ended up not being able to complete.

Here’s how we work for our clients to avoid a situation like this.

When we work with buyers, we discuss the repercussions of a lower appraisal, changes in interest rates and other factors. If we are in a situation where we cannot have a financing condition, we make sure we have done our work beforehand to know the consequences of a lower appraisal and that the buyers have the ability to make up the shortfall if need be. We leverage this information with the seller and their agent, letting them know that our clients are solid purchasers who can close even if the appraisal value is lower. We’ve used this to get a seller to choose our clients over a higher offer price because the seller was more confident we would close without an issue.

On the selling side, we ask questions of the buyer and their agent to get at their situation with regard to financing. We want to know their down payment amount available, income and type of work, and their pre‑approval status. This is true regardless of whether the buyer includes a financing condition. While our seller may have recourse if the deal doesn’t close, our goal is to make sure that from offer to close we have a smooth process.

If you or someone you care about is considering buying or selling, make sure you work with a Realtor that understands how to make sure the deal actually closes. From the day of negotiations to the day the keys are exchanged, we’ll help you avoid surprises.  If that sounds appealing, get in touch with us!