October 2026 Real Estate Market Watch
Hi All
October 2026 brought a groundhog day groove to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) housing market, with buyers continuing to enjoy decent negotiating power.
Across all housing types, 5,603 homes were sold in October (down 7.9% from October 2025), and 14,173 new listingscame onto the market (down 11.9% year-over-year). Even though annual numbers were lower, the market gained a bit of short-term momentum, as seasonally adjusted sales and average prices both edged up slightly from September 2026.
October Spotlight: Detached Homes
Biggest Piece of the Pie: Detached homes remained the most popular property type by far, representing 48.1% of all GTA sales with 2,693 properties sold (down 4.4% year-over-year).
Overall GTA Average Price: The average price tag for a detached home in the GTA sat at $1,310,620, down 3.2% compared to October 2025.
City vs. Suburbs:
- City of Toronto (416): Detached prices stayed relatively resilient, averaging $1,603,886 (down just 1.2% year-over-year) across 741 sales.
- Surrounding Suburbs (905): Detached homes averaged $1,199,303 (down 4.7% year-over-year) across 1,952 sales.
Market Pace: On average, detached homes spent 29 days on the market and sold for 97% of their list price.
The Bank of Canada raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.50%. They suggested that the move was mainly a defensive measure to keep elevated oil and energy costs from spilling over into broader inflation across everyday goods.
For variable mortgages, prime rates increase by 0.25%, which bumps up payments for variable-rate borrowers by roughly $70 a month per $500,000 mortgage, or shifts more of your payment toward interest if your monthly payment is fixed.
For fixed mortgages, fixed rates track bond yields rather than the Bank of Canada rate directly and already had expected hikes priced in, so they are not expected to jump significantly from this announcement alone.
Looking at the big picture, with job growth slowing and household budgets stretched, economists generally expect borrowing rates to plateau around this level rather than spark a prolonged series of aggressive hikes.
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