Ontario MLS® home sales post lowest August total in 25 years
Residential sales activity reported through the MLS® Systems of real estate boards in Ontario numbered 13,620 units in August 2026. This was a decline of 6% from August 2025.
Home sales were 4% below the five-year average and 22.6% below the 10-year average for the month of August.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 109,456 units over the first eight months of the year. This was down modestly by 2.4% from the same period in 2025.
Nationally, home sales activity decreased by 6.9% from year-ago levels in August 2026.
The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) tracks price trends far more accurately than is possible using average or median price measures. The overall MLS® HPI composite benchmark price was $745,400 in August 2026, a modest decline of 3.6% compared to August 2025.
The benchmark price for single-family homes was $826,900, down modestly by 3.4% on a year-over-year basis in August. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $585,000, a decrease of 5.6% compared to a year earlier, while the benchmark apartment price was $489,200, a moderate decrease of 6.4% from year-ago levels.
The average price of resale residential homes sold across the province in August 2026 was $788,835, a minor decrease of 1.7% from August 2025.
The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $815,666, a small reduction of 3% from the first eight months of 2025.
The national average price, by comparison, was nearly unchanged, up only 0.6% on a year-over-year basis to $668,351 in August 2026.
The number of new listings on MLS® Systems of real estate boards in Ontario saw a decline of 8.1% from August 2025. There were 31,024 new residential listings in August 2026.
New listings were 0.3% above the five-year average and 1.9% above the 10-year average for the month of August.
Active residential listings numbered 70,483 units on the market at the end of August, down modestly by 3.9% from the end of August 2025.
Active listings were 20.4% above the five-year average and 41.5% above the 10-year average for the month of August.
Months of inventory numbered 5.2 at the end of August 2026, up from the 5.1 months recorded at the end of August 2025 and above the long-run average of 3.1 months for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
The dollar value of all home sales in the province in August 2026 was $10.7 billion, falling by 7.7% from the same month in 2025.
1 Oakville-Milton, Greater Toronto
2 Cornwall, Kingston and Area, Ottawa, Renfrew County, Rideau-St. Lawrence
3 Bancroft & District, Barrie & District, Kawartha Lakes, Lakelands, Northumberland Hills, Peterborough and the Kawarthas, Quinte & District
4 North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Timmins, Cochrane & Timiskaming Districts
5 Brantford Region, Guelph & District, Hamilton-Burlington, Kitchener-Waterloo, Niagara Region, Simcoe, and Cambridge
6 Chatham-Kent, Grey Bruce Owen Sound, Huron Perth, London & St. Thomas, Sarnia-Lambton, Windsor-Essex, Woodstock-Ingersoll-Tillsonburg
BOARD & ASSOCIATION INFORMATION
The Ontario Real Estate Association represents nearly 100,000 brokers and salespeople who are members of the 29 real estate boards throughout the province. OREA serves its REALTOR® members through a wide variety of support services, educational programs, advocacy, standard forms, and other offerings.
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Jean-Adrien Delicano
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JeanAdrienD@orea.com
Cathy Polan
