Q3 2025 Housing Report Card: Starts, Sales, and Employment
- Marian
- 5 minutes ago
- 1 min read
This Q3 report was prepared by researchers with the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative and commissioned by the Residential Construction Council of Ontario. It compares housing starts across the first nine months of 2025 with the same period over the previous four years, starting in 2021.
We examine 34 separate municipalities across nine separate metro areas in the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Golden Horseshoe region, and assess the state of housing sales and construction over the first nine months of the year, relative to the first nine months of the previous four years.
In the first nine months of the year, housing starts are down 34% in those 34 municipalities . Condo apartment starts over the past nine months are down 51% relative to 2021-24 January-September averages. On the positive side, purpose-built rental starts are up 42%.
Ground-oriented housing (everything other than apartments) starts are down 43% in almost every municipality, Brantford, Markham and Richmond Hill are notable exceptions, showing that the region’s housing weakness extends well beyond the condo market.
Richmond Hill is building more homes than before, especially ground-oriented and condos, which is creating jobs. However, home sales are very weak, rental housing is not being built, and the city is still missing its housing target. Compared to other GTA municipalities, Richmond Hill is doing relatively well (C grade), but there are still big gaps.
