How to Read the GTA Market Without Getting Fooled by Headlines

Every month, TRREB publishes a big batch of numbers. Every month, every news outlet cherry picks one, writes a dramatic headline, and moves on. Every month, our inbox fills up with clients asking if the sky is actually falling or actually booming, depending on which headline they read first.

So this article is our answer to all of those conversations at once. Here are the four numbers we actually watch to read the GTA market, what each one tells you, and the traps to avoid.

1. Average price, in context

Average price gets the most attention because it is the easiest number to put in a headline. It is also the easiest number to mislead with. A few things to know:

• Average price is a mix of what sold, not a price on a specific home. If a lot of condos sell in a given month and fewer detached homes, the average drops, even if individual home prices are unchanged.
• Year over year is more useful than month over month. The Toronto market is seasonal. Comparing March to February tells you almost nothing. Comparing March 2026 to March 2025 tells you something real.
• The HPI (Home Price Index) is better than the average. It controls for mix. If you want the cleanest read on “is my kind of home going up or down,” the HPI by home type is the right number.

2. Sales to new listings ratio

This is the single most useful number for telling you whether a market is a buyer’s, seller’s, or balanced market. It is calculated as:

Sales ÷ New Listings

Rough rules of thumb for the GTA:

• Below 40%: Buyer’s market. Expect prices to soften and negotiation leverage to sit with buyers.
• 40% to 60%: Balanced market. Neither side has a strong edge.
• Above 60%: Seller’s market. Expect prices to firm and bidding competition to return.

This ratio tends to lead the average price by a month or two. When you see the ratio climb out of a buyer’s market range, prices tend to follow within the quarter. When you see it fall out of a seller’s market range, the same thing happens in reverse.

3. Months of inventory

Months of inventory answers the question “if no new listings came on the market and sales continued at the current pace, how long until everything was sold?” It is calculated as:

Active Listings ÷ Monthly Sales

For the GTA, here is how we think about it:

• Under 2 months: Tight. This is when bidding wars on well priced homes become normal.
• 2 to 4 months: Healthy balance.
• 4 to 6 months: Buyers have real leverage on negotiation.
• Over 6 months: Meaningfully soft. Pricing correctly matters more than anything else.

Months of inventory is the closest thing to a “temperature” reading for a local market. It is also one of the few numbers you can look at by segment (detached, condo, price band) to understand what is actually happening inside the headline.

4. Days on market

Finally, days on market tells you how quickly properties are actually selling. Not the list price changes, not the negotiation, just raw time from listing to sold.

In the GTA, a typical “healthy” days on market for a well priced, well staged home is under three weeks. When we start seeing median days on market creep past 30, that is a signal that buyers are being pickier and that pricing strategy has to tighten up. When we see median days on market drop under two weeks, we know buyers are running ahead of supply again.

Days on market is especially useful at the property level. If a home you like has been sitting for 45 days, the story is not usually “it’s a bad house.” The story is usually “it was mispriced on day one.” That is a negotiating opportunity.

Headlines we tune out

Now for the other side. Here are the kinds of headlines we consistently ignore:

• “Toronto home prices plunge.” Usually describing a month over month change in a seasonal market. Essentially meaningless.
• “Bidding wars are back.” Usually sourced from two anecdotes and zero data.
• “Canadian real estate bubble finally bursts.” Has been the headline literally every year since 2012.
• “Experts predict X percent decline by year end.” Nobody predicts turning points accurately, and the people in the article rarely have money on their own calls.

None of these are useful for making an actual decision about your home.

Putting it all together

When someone asks us “how is the market right now,” our honest internal checklist is:

1. What is the sales to new listings ratio, and which direction is it moving?
2. What is months of inventory in the specific segment you care about?
3. What does the HPI (not the average) say year over year?
4. What is median days on market for comparable properties?

Those four numbers, in that order, give you a much clearer picture than any headline. They are also the numbers we use when we sit down with clients to plan pricing, offer strategy, or timing.

Where to find them

TRREB publishes monthly stats at trreb.ca, usually in the first week of every month for the prior month. We also break them down in plain language in our monthly newsletter and post the highlights on our Monthly Stats page.

If you ever see a headline that scares you or excites you about the market, send it to us. We will tell you whether it is actually new information or just a repackaged number you already knew.