GTA condo apartment sales by price band in September 2026
Photo: Storeys

Two out of every three condos sold in the GTA last month changed hands for less than $600,000. Of the 1,316 condominium apartments sold in September, 893 went for under $600K, and 594 — nearly half of all condo sales — sold for less than $500,000. The single busiest price band in the entire market was $400,000 to $499,999, with 390 transactions. That is not a luxury story. It is a compromise story, and it turns out buyers are ready for it. (Storeys)

A new national survey from RE/MAX, published this week, finds 65 per cent of Canadians would make at least one compromise to afford a larger or more suitable home — living farther from a city centre, or considering an older home that needs work. Location is where buyers are bending most: nearly two-thirds said they would relocate to a home that better meets their needs, with 47 per cent willing to move up to an hour from their current community and another 16 per cent going even farther. And the September condo numbers suggest they are already doing it. Inside Toronto, the average condo apartment sold for $640,248, down 6.1 per cent from a year earlier. In the 905, the average was $533,654, down 12 per cent — a $106,594 gap that buys a lot of GO Transit. (Storeys, RE/MAX Canada)

Don Kottick, president of RE/MAX Canada, frames the shift as pragmatism rather than surrender.

"There's a difference between compromising and settling. Rather than giving up on homeownership, Canadians are making different choices about how to get there."

— Don Kottick, President, RE/MAX Canada

That distinction matters because the market is finally cooperating with the choosers. The RE/MAX Fall 2026 Outlook, built on a Leger survey of 1,532 Canadians plus on-the-ground reports from brokers nationwide, puts the Greater Toronto Area firmly in buyers' territory: average residential prices down 5.1 per cent year over year, with sales essentially flat. Across Canada, 32 per cent of markets are expected to be firmly buyer-favourable this fall — more than double the share a year ago.

Nowhere is buyer leverage clearer than in condos. At the end of September, 8,226 apartments sat listed across TRREB's coverage area — roughly six listings for every one sold in Toronto, nearly seven for every one sold in the 905. Lower prices did not bring buyers back, which tells you what is really holding the market down: it is not just price, it is nerve. Still, for the buyer who can stomach the uncertainty, the selection is extraordinary.

That is the window RE/MAX is pointing to. The report's national sales forecast was quietly trimmed to finish about 2 per cent below 2025, and Kottick's second line is aimed at the buyers staring at those compromises and wondering whether they should make them now or wait for better.

"The market has not become easy for buyers, but in many regions, it is allowing for a more deliberate purchasing process."

— Don Kottick, President, RE/MAX Canada

Deliberate is the right word, because this is a market where haste is punished and patience is not. A buyer who spent September studying price bands instead of panic-offering found that 45 per cent of GTA condos traded under half a million — a fact the headline average obscures.

For sellers, the lesson of the week is in those same bands: buyers are out there, but they are price-checking every listing against six or seven others, and the premium for optimism has never been thinner. The next real market signal lands October 28, when the Bank of Canada announces its rate decision alongside the Monetary Policy Report. Until then, the defining trait of the fall market is not fear and not greed. It is flexibility — the buyers who get a home this fall will be the ones willing to bend on everything except the price.

That's the market as it stands — we'll be back tomorrow evening with the next round of headlines.

Compiled by the HomesFound team from the reporting linked above.