Ontario Housing Market: Provincial Home Prices and City Reports | August 2026

Ontario’s provincial housing figures come from the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA), which adds up the MLS® activity of every local board in the province and publishes the totals each month through CREA. The numbers below are for August 2026. They blend very different markets, from the Greater Toronto Area to Thunder Bay, so the city reports further down say more about any one place; the Canadian housing market overview puts Ontario beside the other provinces and explains the measures.

Ontario home prices, August 2026

OREA provincial release on CREA Stats, August 2026.

Every one of OREA’s benchmark types was lower than a year earlier, with the apartment benchmark at -6.4% against -3.4% for single-family homes. The typical Ontario apartment’s benchmark was 59% of the single-family one.

Sales, listings and inventory

OREA put August 2026 sales 4 % below the five-year average for the month and 22.6 % below the ten-year average. With 5.2 months of inventory (a year earlier 5.1), the province carried 2.1 months more than its long-run August average of 3.1, though still short of the 6.4 months CREA uses as the start of a buyer’s market. Sales were 43.9% of new listings, below the 45% to 65% band CREA treats as balanced.

How much of Ontario is the GTA

The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s area, from the City of Toronto out to Durham, Halton, Peel, York and parts of Dufferin and Simcoe, accounted for 5,057 of Ontario’s 13,620 sales in August 2026, or 37%. Its average sale of $993,410 was 26% above the provincial average and its composite benchmark of $925,900 24% above Ontario’s. Within the GTA the range is wide too: Oshawa’s average was $652,775 and Markham’s $1,208,692.

Land transfer tax in Ontario and in Toronto

Ontario’s land transfer tax (all provinces) on a home at the provincial average price is $12,252. A qualifying first-time buyer gets up to $4,000 back, which covers the whole tax on a home up to $368,000.

Inside the City of Toronto a second, municipal land transfer tax applies, and below $2,000,000 its brackets match Ontario’s. At the City of Toronto’s August 2026 average of $979,684, the provincial tax is $16,069 and the municipal tax another $16,069, for $32,137 before any first-time buyer rebates. Outside the city, the same purchase carries the provincial amount.

Income needed in Ontario

At the provincial average price and the minimum down payment of $53,884, a buyer would need about $176,000 of household income to qualify (method). Ontario’s median household income in the 2021 Census was $91,000 for 2020, so the income needed is 1.9 times the median. At the apartment benchmark of $489,200 it is $112,800. The Ontario mortgage affordability calculator runs the same test from an income, and first-time buyer programs are on the Ontario first-time home buyer page.

Ontario city housing market reports

Greater Toronto Area (TRREB):

• Toronto: the GTA as a whole and the City of Toronto
• Mississauga and Brampton in Peel Region
• Markham and Richmond Hill in York Region
• Oshawa in Durham Region

Rest of southern Ontario:

• Hamilton-Burlington
• Niagara Region
• Waterloo Region: Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge
• Guelph
• London and St. Thomas
• Windsor-Essex
• Barrie

Eastern and northern Ontario:

• Ottawa, with Gatineau across the river in Quebec
• Thunder Bay

Related pages

• Ontario rental market
• Cheapest cities to live in Ontario
• Quebec housing market