Toronto Started 156 Condos in Six Months. The Decade Average Is 7,000 a Year.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation counted 156 new condominium unit starts in Toronto proper during the first six months of 2026. The figure comes from CMHC's Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report, released earlier this month. For context, the city averages about 7,000 new condo starts annually when measured over the last ten years. This year's first-half figure suggests that unless the final six months of 2026 produce an extraordinary surge, the full-year total will come in somewhere near 300 units. That would represent roughly 4% of the decade average.
The problem will not ease when interest rates drop. A typical high-rise condo project in Toronto requires 70% to 80% of units pre-sold before construction financing clears. That means a 2026 start reflects sales that happened two to four years earlier, during the 2023 and 2024 high-rate window when buyers pulled back hard and lenders tightened qualifying rules. Developers who couldn't hit the pre-sale threshold either shelved the project or pivoted to purpose-built rental, where federal GST rebates and CMHC MLI Select financing made the math slightly more forgiving.
The Missing Supply Is Already Locked In
Construction timelines for large condo projects in Toronto run about four to five years from groundbreaking to occupancy. The 156 units started in early 2026 will be ready around 2030 or 2031. That delivery window is now effectively locked. There is no way to backfill it. Even if every barrier to construction disappeared tomorrow and financing loosened dramatically, the city has already committed to a severe supply drought at the end of this decade. The units that would have filled that window simply do not exist on any construction schedule.
Condos in Toronto are not just ownership housing. They function as a primary source of rental supply. Individual investors buy pre-construction units, close at completion, and rent them out. A collapse in condo starts is a collapse in future rental inventory, lagged by four to five years. Toronto's rental market in 2030 will reflect the decisions developers made in 2024 and early 2025, when the sales environment made large projects unviable.
The National Picture Is Worse
Nationally, CMHC estimates Canada needs to complete between 417,000 and 469,000 homes per year to restore 2019-level affordability by 2036. The current pace is running short by 187,000 to 238,000 units annually. That gap is cumulative. Every year the shortfall persists adds to the total deficit. The Toronto condo freeze is one city's data point, but it matters at scale because Toronto accounts for a disproportionate share of high-density completions. When the country's largest housing market produces less than 3% of its historical condo average, the national target becomes that much harder to reach.
Some of the lost condo volume is being offset by purpose-built rental. Developers who couldn't make the condo math work have shifted projects into the rental category, supported by federal programs designed to incentivize that shift. But rental projects tend to be smaller and build out more slowly than the master-planned multi-tower condo developments Toronto is known for. The replacement is partial.
The gap between 156 and 7,000 matters because of what it means in 2031 when someone looks for a place to live and finds a rental market shaped by what did not get built in 2026.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation counted 156 new condominium unit starts in Toronto proper during the first six months of 2026. The figure comes from CMHC's Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report, released earlier this month. For context, the city averages about 7,000 new condo starts annually when measured over the last ten years. This year's first-half figure suggests that unless the final six months of 2026 produce an extraordinary surge, the full-year total will come in somewhere near 300 units. That would represent roughly 4% of the decade average.
The problem will not ease when interest rates drop. A typical high-rise condo project in Toronto requires 70% to 80% of units pre-sold before construction financing clears. That means a 2026 start reflects sales that happened two to four years earlier, during the 2023 and 2024 high-rate window when buyers pulled back hard and lenders tightened qualifying rules. Developers who couldn't hit the pre-sale threshold either shelved the project or pivoted to purpose-built rental, where federal GST rebates and CMHC MLI Select financing made the math slightly more forgiving.
The Missing Supply Is Already Locked In
Construction timelines for large condo projects in Toronto run about four to five years from groundbreaking to occupancy. The 156 units started in early 2026 will be ready around 2030 or 2031. That delivery window is now effectively locked. There is no way to backfill it. Even if every barrier to construction disappeared tomorrow and financing loosened dramatically, the city has already committed to a severe supply drought at the end of this decade. The units that would have filled that window simply do not exist on any construction schedule.
Condos in Toronto are not just ownership housing. They function as a primary source of rental supply. Individual investors buy pre-construction units, close at completion, and rent them out. A collapse in condo starts is a collapse in future rental inventory, lagged by four to five years. Toronto's rental market in 2030 will reflect the decisions developers made in 2024 and early 2025, when the sales environment made large projects unviable.
The National Picture Is Worse
Nationally, CMHC estimates Canada needs to complete between 417,000 and 469,000 homes per year to restore 2019-level affordability by 2036. The current pace is running short by 187,000 to 238,000 units annually. That gap is cumulative. Every year the shortfall persists adds to the total deficit. The Toronto condo freeze is one city's data point, but it matters at scale because Toronto accounts for a disproportionate share of high-density completions. When the country's largest housing market produces less than 3% of its historical condo average, the national target becomes that much harder to reach.
Some of the lost condo volume is being offset by purpose-built rental. Developers who couldn't make the condo math work have shifted projects into the rental category, supported by federal programs designed to incentivize that shift. But rental projects tend to be smaller and build out more slowly than the master-planned multi-tower condo developments Toronto is known for. The replacement is partial.
The gap between 156 and 7,000 matters because of what it means in 2031 when someone looks for a place to live and finds a rental market shaped by what did not get built in 2026.
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