First-quarter condo sales in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA ) were down 52 per cent annually to a new 35-year low, according to a recent report from Urbanation.

There were 246 units sold and, for the first time in at least 30 years, no new project launches in Q1.

“After the condo market sank to a new multi-decade low in the first quarter, it was encouraging to see a number of new initiatives announced that should help improve sales, reduce inventory and get more construction underway,” said Shaun Hildebrand, president of Urbanation. “However, with market confidence still very fragile and demand fundamentals slowing down, the recovery process is likely to begin slowly”.

Inventory has also reached a record high. An estimated 4295 new condos were completed and unsold as of Q1, more than doubling the level from a year ago and nearly five times higher than two years ago.

Based on sales during the previous 12 months, there were 92 months of completed new condo supply on the market, which doesn’t fully account for units that were presold but the buyer failed to close. Additionally, 8,629 unsold new condos were under construction and slated for completion in the next couple years.

The report also concluded that developers lowered asking prices for standing inventory to an average of $1,189 per square foot (psf) in Q1. That amounts to a 5 per cent decline from a year ago and a 13 per cent decrease from the high three years ago.

However, resale units in comparable buildings registered within the past three years averaged a selling price of $859 psf, a 25 per cent drop from the market peak in Q1-2022. As a result, the gap between asking prices for developer-owned new condos and resale units remained at a record high 38 per cent.

The recently announced full HST rebate for one year is estimated to lower prices for unsold new condos by about $100,000, reducing the price gap between new and resale condos down to 20 per cent.

Urbanation said a contributing factor to the downward pressure on resale prices is the record volume of condo completions in recent years, which is starting to moderate.

Over the past three months, a total of 7,201 units reached completion, a 21 per cent decline from the same period last year. For the remainder of 2026, 14,649 units are scheduled for completion, bringing the annual total to 21,850 units — down from highs of 29,616 units in 2025 and 29,924 units in 2024. Completions are projected to continue falling to a total of 14,659 units in 2027 and 13,039 units in 2028. Only 2,029 units under construction have a scheduled completion for 2029.

A total of 1,254 units started construction in Q1. However, this was mostly attributable to one large project. Another 963 units were cancelled and are now being converted to purpose-built rentals. Since the start of 2024, a total of 11,424 condo units were cancelled, of which 4,064 units were converted to purpose-built rental, resulting in a net removal of 7,360 units.