Whenever there are headlines about real estate in the media, it is often unclear what market results they are sharing, or for what type of real estate the forecasts are focused upon.  Sometimes the headline is about what happened to the average price across Canada in the past year, sometimes a forecast is about what’s coming next in Toronto – and sometimes it isn’t about any market or housing type in particular.

In early February 2025, we attended a Year in Review event put on by the good people at the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.  As you can imagine, lots of stats were discussed, forecasts were made and coffee was consumed.

We wanted to breakdown one particular segment of the stats across the GTA, namely housing type.  The headlines we reference above are often focused on what’s happening, on average, in a given housing market.  It is rare that these stories talk about what is happening with certain housing types, and make no mistake, there are significant differences in how certain types of homes did and what’s predicted to happen next.

Grab a cup of coffee and sit down as we walk you through what happened in 2024 for your housing type!

First off, what sort of places do people live in?

One thing that surprises many people is the actual percentages of housing types that make up a given market.  We tend to make assumptions about the levels of housing types based on what we see in the neighbours in which we live and work, but the percentages for the area can be quite different.

Here’s the breakdown of percentages for each housing type in the seven areas of the GTA.

With the exception of Toronto, the most common housing type across the GTA is detached homes, followed by apartments.  Toronto swaps the order of those two, but they remain the two most common housing types.  Semi-detached homes and townhouses each make up only 5% to 12% of housing market across the GTA, so they are far less common than you might think.

We’re going to look at prices and sales across the GTA next, so we need to know how much each housing type make up for the GTA on average.  Here are the numbers.

• Detached Houses: Approximately 45.5%
• Semi-Detached Houses: Approximately 8.5%
• Townhouses (Row Houses): Approximately 9.5%
• Apartments: Approximately 36.5%

In a pie chart, that looks like this.

Now that we know the breakdown of housing types in each part of the GTA and the GTA as a whole, let’s look at what happened in 2024!

We did it!  We had (slightly) more sales in 2024!

Last year, we saw a slight increase in the level of homes sold, going up from about 65,900 in 2023 to about 67,600 in 2024.  That’s about 1,700 more sales across the entirety of the GTA, so not exactly a huge difference.

As you can see from the line chart of sales per month, April was the busiest month last year and December came in as the slowest month of the year.

Those sales were spread across the GTA, but not evenly of course.  Toronto saw the largest level of sales, while York and Peel more or less tied for second place.  Durham and Halton each had a pretty significant level of sales but Simcoe was down near the bottom, and Dufferin was the least active market last year in terms of sales.

If we look at the types of homes that sold, we can see that almost half (46%) of homes sold last year were detached homes.  That matches exactly the percentage of homes (46%) that detached homes make up of the housing mix.  Apartments accounted for 28% of the sales last year, despite making up 36% of the housing mix, which means it was a slower year for apartment transactions.  Townhouses made up 18% of the transactions in 2024, despite being just 10% of the housing mix, so it seems like people who were going to buy apartments opted for townhouses instead.  Finally, semi-detached properties were 9% of the sales in 2024, and that’s exactly the percentage of the housing mix they have in the GTA.

Put it all together, and it seems like the sales of detached and semi-detached did what we would expect given the housing mix, but apartments and townhouses decided to switch places in 2024.

We did it!  We had (marginally) more affordable prices in 2024!

On the average price side of the equation, we saw that we saw a slight drop in the average price across the GTA.  It went from about $1.126M in 2023 down to about $1.117M in 2025.  That’s about $9,000, so we’ll hold off on the ticker tape parade for now.

The highest average price of the year was in May of 2024, while the start of the year was the lowest.

Turning to the average price by home type, we see that detached homes lead the market, with an average price of $1.453M in the GTA.  That’s down about $10K from 2023.  Despite not making up much of the sales overall, semi-detached are the second highest price option, at $1.102M.  That’s down about $12K from the year before.  Townhouses saw the biggest actual price drop, going from $949K in 2023 to about $922K on average in 2024, a drop of about $27,000.  This might account for the increase in townhouse sales relative to their percentage of the housing mix, as buyers saw an opportunity.  Apartments dropped about $14K, going from $717K on average in 2023 to about $703K last year.

While no housing type showed an improvement in average price across the GTA in 2024 compared to 2023, it’s far from the housing crash that some pundits predicted would happen.

Let’s call 2024 the year of (trying to) selling your home.

Finally, if we look at the breakdown of new listings, we can see that we had a substantial increase in the level of properties going up for sale in 2024 compared to 2023. We had just over 166,000 listings come on the market last year and that is about 16% more than in 2023.  That’s over 23,000 more new listings compared to 2023.

A reminder that we had 67,609 sales in 2024, which means that only about 41% of the new listings in 2024 actually sold.  Even if some of those “new” listings were re-listings of properties that failed to sell, there were lots of sellers who wanted to find a buyer but didn’t manage to do so.

The percentages when it came to who was trying to sell last year are broadly in keeping with the housing mix percentages we see in the GTA, but townhouses were again a larger part of the mix than would be expected.  They also were the biggest year over year increase in terms of how much of the market inventory they comprised, up 122% compared to the level in 2023.

From a simple numbers perspective, we had the most disappointed sellers in the condo apartment category, with about 9,000 more attempts to sell in 2024 than in 2023.

There you have it, 2024 in review!  It wasn’t a banner year by pretty much any standard, but the review does tell us that where you live and the housing type you own makes a significant difference in how your market did last year.

If you’re thinking about making a move, then you need the specific data for your home and your area, and we’re happy to provide it.  Get in touch with us and we can set a time to talk about how to move you forward!

It can be easy to find fault with the Toronto real estate market.  High prices, tons of competition, not enough supply – it can be a challenging market for sure.

We don’t often talk about what Toronto gets right, so let’s focus on that for a change.  Within our team we regularly work with buyers outside of Toronto proper and there are somethings that we wish were more commonplace in these markets.

Here’s our list of what Toronto does right in real estate.

Here’s the copy of the home inspection report.

Within the freehold Toronto real estate market, it is very common for sellers to have a pre-list home inspection report done.  This document contains a review of the property, and the home inspector typically looks at mechanicals, plumbing, electrical, structural and other elements with the house.

This is a cost for the seller (typically around the $500 mark) but well worth it for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, such an inspection report can provided necessary information to a buyer to make them feel comfortable with submitting an offer on the home.  Many buyers understandably want to be sure that the home doesn’t have any major issues that will cost lots of money to repair in the future.  While a home inspection is not a guarantee, it is a third party review of the home and it lets a potential buyer know all sorts of helpful information.  The more comfortable buyers are with the home, the more likely they are to submit an offer, which often translates into a higher sale price.

The second reason we consider pre-list home inspection reports so valuable is that they also provide the seller with the necessary information to make sure they aren’t misrepresenting any aspect of the property and causing trouble for themselves down the line.  While a seller could simply say “I don’t know” to any and all questions about the home (such as the age of the roof, when the AC unit was installed, etc.), they often give their best answers to the question.  If, however, a seller was misinformed or mistaken and the buyer relies on that information, there are potential repercussions down the line.  Rather than guessing, a pre-list home inspection allows sellers to share what the inspector discovered, confident that it is current and (likely) accurate.

Outside of Toronto, we often find that pre-list home inspection reports are not done by sellers.  When the market is hot (as we’re currently experiencing in many parts of the GTA), you have buyers being pushed into situations where they have to offer on a home without any understanding of the condition of the home.  The home may still sell firm, but make no mistake, it is risky for both the buyer and the seller if something comes up later.

Here’s some marketing material to take home as you consider the property.

The second thing that Toronto gets right is that by and large, listing agents prepare useful marketing packages that potential buyers can bring home with them.  Photos, neighbourhood and school information, floorplans, surveys – it is not uncommon in Toronto to have a package like this that buyers get to take home and read and consider buying the home.

This is a cost that is paid for by the listing agent and it seems strange that in lots of other parts of the GTA, there are little to no marketing efforts made within homes for sale.  In times gone past, it may have been fair in that the price point was considerably lower and agents made lower commissions.  With the marked increase in average price in most parts of the GTA, it is amazing how many million dollar listings skip the in house marketing completely.

Just like with pre-list home inspection reports, a big benefit of such material is that it can result in additional offers and a higher sale price.  Many buyer see a number of properties on a showing tour and being able to sit down and review a well-presented pitch for your home is crucial for them deciding to move forward with an offer.

Can you let me know what you thought?

The final thing we’ve noted with listings outside Toronto is that the listing agents tend to not be interested in feedback from purchasing agents as to how the home showed or what our clients thought about it.

This isn’t the case with all listings, but we do notice a considerable difference in how agents in the GTA follow up versus how agents in Toronto follow up.  While automated email surveys are common for pretty much every property, we typically receive phone calls from about two-thirds of the Toronto agents whose properties we viewed the day before.  When we show homes outside of the city, that number drops considerably, to about one out of every five properties.

We don’t have a ready answer as to why this is different in Toronto versus other municipalities.  There are definitely some agents who consider such feedback crucial, regardless of where they are working.  For some reason, Toronto agents are more likely to actually reach out to the agents who show their listings to have a conversation about how it went and whether their buyer might come to the table.

Without a doubt, such outreach is hugely helpful in answering any questions, addressing potential concerns, and encouraging offers to come to the table.  Perhaps one reason that Toronto has such high real estate prices is that agents do all they can to encourage multiple offers and push the sale price up!

While the Toronto real estate market is often maligned, it’s worth noting that there are a few things that it does get right when it comes to listing properties for sale.  It will be interesting to see whether some markets in the GTA start to adopt similar practices as prices – and competition – continue to grow.  If you’re looking to buy or sell, make sure you work with agents who understand and implement the best practices to get you the results you need.  If that sounds appealing, get in touch.