Housing starts in much of southern Ontario down in first nine months of 2025: report

The Residential Construction Council of Ontario says housing starts in the Greater Toronto Area and broader Greater Golden Horseshoe region declined significantly in the first nine months of 2025 relative to recent years.

A report by the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative, which was commissioned by the council, says housing starts were down by more than one-third in the 34 municipalities of the region over the first three quarters, compared with the same January-to-September periods of 2021 to 2024.

The study says there were 51 per cent fewer condo apartment starts in the first three quarters, along with 43 per cent fewer ground-oriented housing starts, however purpose-built rentals were up 42 per cent compared with the previous four years.

Council president Richard Lyall says the data shows “we are staring into the abyss” when it comes to residential construction, and that the report’s findings “are alarming but confirm what the residential construction industry and our builders have been experiencing and saying for some time now.”

It comes as the federal government aims to ramp up home construction, pledging in last month’s budget to spend $25 billion on housing over the next five years.

The federal budget called attention to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s current estimate that 430,000 to 480,000 new housing units are needed per year throughout the next decade in order to restore affordability to 2019 levels.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2025.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press