Is It a Good Time to Buy or Sell in the GTA? September 2026 Update

The quick read: is it a good time to buy or sell in the GTA? September 2026.

• Buyers paused. GTA sales were 5,040 in September, down 9.0% from a year ago, and the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board called it a holding pattern driven by uncertainty about the economy, inflation and borrowing costs.
• Prices eased again. The average GTA price was $1,006,409, down 5.1% on the year, and the benchmark was down 4.7%. Both edged lower against August once adjusted for the season.
• Choice grew in all four western cities. Active listings rose from August in Oakville, Mississauga, Milton and Burlington while sales fell in three of the four. In Oakville there were 6.6 homes for sale at month end for every one that sold.
• Burlington is the only one of the four in balanced territory, with 46% of new listings selling and the shortest time from first listing to sale. Oakville and Mississauga sit at 36.5%, which is a buyer’s market by the usual measure.
• Inflation printed at 3.0% in August, above the Bank of Canada’s target, so the next move in rates is not a given. One point on a mortgage rate takes roughly $74,000 off what a buyer can borrow for the same monthly payment.

Source: TRREB Market Watch, Halton and Peel regional reports, September 2026. Rate arithmetic is my own.

The GTA housing market in September 2026 was a market of people waiting. Sales were down 9.0% from a year ago, new listings were down 14.4%, and the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board said buyers were in a holding pattern while they watched the economy, inflation and borrowing costs. TRREB’s Jason Mercer said there is substantial pent-up demand, and that would-be buyers need to be confident that their jobs will hold and that inflation will not push borrowing costs up. The confidence part is right. The pent-up demand part I do not know about. Pent-up demand means buyers who are ready to go and only waiting for a signal. Whether that is what sits behind these numbers will not be clear until there is more confidence in the market and some relief and progress on the economy. Sellers in Oakville, Mississauga, Milton and Burlington are waiting for buyers to come back. Buyers are waiting for a clearer rate picture. Both groups are hoping the other side moves first. So is it a good time to buy or sell in the GTA? This post is about what waiting costs each side, and how to move without guessing.

Is it a good time to buy or sell in the GTA, or should you wait?

Start with the rate picture, because that is what sits behind the pause. The Bank of Canada’s overnight rate was 2.3% in September and prime was 4.5%. Inflation printed at 3.0% in August, which is above the 2% target. Nobody knows what the bank does next, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What I can show you is what one point either way does to a buyer, because that arithmetic does not depend on a forecast. On an $800,000 mortgage over 25 years, the payment at 4.64% is about $4,490 a month. At 5.64% it is about $4,949. Run it the other way and the same $4,490 payment carries a mortgage of roughly $726,000 at the higher rate instead of $800,000. One point of rate is about $74,000 of buying power. That is why buyers are careful right now, and it is also why a buyer who is ready has an advantage over one who is still deciding. The way to be ready is a rate hold. A lender locks today’s rate for you for 90 to 120 days while you look. If rates go up in that window, you keep the lower rate, and if higher rates push prices down at the same time, you are shopping with yesterday’s borrowing cost in a cheaper market. If rates go down, you take the lower one. It costs nothing to set up and it buys you time to decide on your own terms.

For sellers the cost of waiting shows up as choice. Every one of the four western cities had more homes for sale at the end of September than at the end of August, and three of the four had fewer sales. The way to see what that means for your own home is to count how many homes were sitting for sale for every one that sold in the month. Oakville ended September with 1,073 homes on the market and 162 sales, so for every home that found a buyer, 6.6 others were still waiting for one. In Mississauga it was 5.1. Milton was 4.4 and Burlington was 4.3. Across the GTA it was 5.2.

Here is why that number matters more than the benchmark when you are the one selling. A buyer who walks through your home in October is not comparing it to the market in general. They are comparing it to the five or six other homes in the same price range that they have already seen or saved, and those homes have been in front of every active buyer for weeks. Buyers in that position do not need to decide quickly. They can wait for the one that looks like the best value, and if yours is not it, they move on to the next one on their list. The report shows homes in the four cities sold at 96% to 97% of asking on average in September, which says the price that gets accepted is often not the price that was listed. In a market with two homes for sale per sale, a well priced home gets found. In a market with six or seven, it has to win a comparison. The homes that sold in September were the ones that won it, and that came down to three things: condition, presentation, and a price built from what actually closed on the street rather than from what the neighbours are asking. The other homes on the list are what you are up against, and knowing exactly which ones they are, and how long each has been sitting, is the first thing I look at before we talk about a number.

Where does the GTA housing market sit in each city, and what do you do with it?

Oakville

Composite benchmark $1,128,800, down 3.0% on the year and 0.6% against August. Detached homes benchmarked at $1,573,000 and sold at an average of $1,740,421 across 85 sales. Oakville had 162 sales in September against 203 in August, with 1,073 homes available at month end, up from 957. Only 36.5% of new listings are selling, and homes that sold in September had been on the market 56 days from their first listing (PDOM) against 32 days on the current listing (LDOM). Those are the two clocks every sale carries. Listing days on market counts from the current listing only. Property days on market counts from the first time the home was listed and keeps running through cancellations and relists. The 24 day gap between them in Oakville is the widest of the four cities again, and it is the cost of coming out at a hopeful number. If you are listing in Falgarwood or anywhere else in town this fall, the plan starts with a full year of listings on your street, including the ones that expired or were terminated, so you can see what the market accepted and what it refused.

Mississauga

Composite $867,500, down 3.8% on the year and 0.8% against August. Detached $1,245,400, freehold townhomes $870,700, condo apartments $488,300. Mississauga is the largest of the four cities, so 468 sales and 2,408 homes available are normal for its size. The mix is what matters. There were 831 condo apartments for sale at month end against 122 condo apartment sales, and those sales took 46 days (LDOM). A condo seller in Mississauga has the most competition of any seller in the four cities, and a condo buyer has the most room to negotiate on closing date, financing and status certificate conditions, inclusions, and parking or a locker. Detached homes are a different market inside the same city: 196 sales across Mississauga, 30 days (LDOM), and 96% of asking. Those are city-wide figures, and they say a detached home priced to its sold comparables is still finding its buyer in about a month. What that looks like on one street in Erin Mills or anywhere else in the city is what the listing record for that street tells you, and it is the first thing I pull.

Milton

Composite $861,600, down 4.8% on the year and almost unchanged against August. Detached $1,149,000, freehold townhomes $787,100. Milton had 118 sales and 522 homes available, and 40.6% of new listings are selling, which puts it right at the line between a balanced market and a buyer’s market. Freehold townhomes are the engine here, with 33 sales at 98% of asking in 28 days (LDOM). If you own a townhome in Milton and the detached home you want is now about $362,000 further up the benchmark, that step is roughly the same as it was in August. The planning question is the sequence of the two transactions, not the month.

Burlington

Composite $840,600, down 2.8%, the smallest decline of the four for a third month. Freehold townhomes at $873,000 were down only 1.75%, the most resilient home type in any of the four cities. Burlington is also the only one of the four in balanced territory: 46.1% of new listings are selling, homes that sold had been on the market 49 days from first listing (PDOM), and the gap between the two clocks was 15 days, the narrowest of the four. Detached homes sold in 26 days (LDOM) at 96% of asking. If you have been waiting for a market where a well prepared home sells in a reasonable time at a reasonable discount, Burlington is already that market.

What does a seller do in the 60 days before listing in a market like this?

When someone calls me about selling this fall, the first thing I do is not open the market report. I ask five questions, one at a time. Why are you thinking of moving? What needs to happen, and by when? What do the mortgage and the equity look like at a conservative number? Where do you work, and what does the commute need to be? What does the family need on the other side? The answers set the timeline, and the timeline tells us how much of the preparation we can do before the sign goes up.

Then I walk the house. The benchmark knows your postal code. It does not know your kitchen is original or that your roof was replaced two years ago. After the walk, we sit down with every listing in your pocket for the past twelve months, including the ones that expired or were terminated, and we go through what sold, what did not, and what the difference was. In a market where buyers have five or six homes to compare against yours, that record is the most useful thing on the table, because it shows what buyers in your pocket actually paid and what they walked away from. The price is not mine to set and it is not the report’s. We build it together from that evidence, and I guide it.

From there you choose how much of the preparation I coordinate. Some sellers want a full plan with the trades, the stager, the cleaners and the photographer organized around their dates, and they want to hand me the keys and hear from me on Mondays. Others want the list and the introductions and will run it themselves. Either way the goal is the same: arrive in week one ready, priced to what sold, and sitting under the search threshold buyers actually use, so your home shows up for everyone who can afford it and looks like the best value on their list.

Is it a good time to buy in the GTA?

Prices in every home type and every one of the four cities are below a year ago, and there is more choice than there was a month ago. That is the good news. The careful part is the rate. TRREB’s view is that buyers want to take advantage of a more affordable market but need confidence on jobs and inflation first. That is the board’s read, and I agree with the first half of it. Nothing in this report says prices are going up, and nothing in it says rates are coming down. My own read, and it is an opinion rather than a fact, is that with inflation at 3.0% the odds lean toward a rate increase before a cut. A plan that only works if rates fall is not a plan.

The conservative version looks like this. Have a pre-approval or a rate hold in place before you start looking. It tells you your real range, it protects you for 90 to 120 days if rates move, and it puts you in a stronger position to negotiate, because the seller knows your offer can close. Work your numbers on the rate you are actually being offered, and if you want a margin of safety, run them a second time one point higher and see whether the payment still fits. Know your affordability budget before the first showing so every home you walk through is one you can buy. When a home is one you would seriously consider, that is when we pull the sold comparables and the listing history on that street and work out what it is worth to you, not what it is listed at. In a month with 6.6 homes for sale for every sale in Oakville, that history is leverage.

Upsizing, downsizing or retiring: what does the spread tell you?

If you are moving between home types in the same city, the benchmark matters less than the spread between the home you own and the one you are moving to. In Oakville, the gap between the detached benchmark and the condo apartment benchmark is about $1,021,000, almost exactly where it was in August. Condos fell by a larger percentage than detached homes, but detached homes gave up more dollars, so the equity a downsizer releases is roughly unchanged. In Milton, the step from a freehold townhome to a detached home is about $362,000, within a few thousand of August. The spreads are stable, which means the decision does not have to wait for the market. It can rest on your timing and on sequencing the two transactions so you are not carrying two homes or none. If you are deciding whether to sell first or buy first, the extra choice this month argues for selling first. Your sale is the harder of the two transactions to time right now, and knowing your number before you shop is worth more than it was in the spring.

What does September mean if you are a non-resident seller or buyer?

For a non-resident selling in one of these four cities, the timeline matters more than the price. The Section 116 process starts only after a firm sale, and until the clearance certificate arrives the buyer’s lawyer holds back a share of the price in trust, typically 25% and often more in practice. Add the 49 to 56 days it took the average September sale to find its buyer from first listing (PDOM), and a sale that starts in October may not fully settle until well into the new year. The remedy is the same as for any seller: price to what sold, come out ready, and shorten the first clock so the second one starts sooner. Confirm the holdback with your real estate lawyer before closing.

For a non-resident buyer, status decides everything before the market does. Canadian citizens and permanent residents buy here with no federal restriction and no speculation tax. Work permit holders can buy but owe Ontario’s 25% non-resident speculation tax. The federal purchase ban on other foreign buyers is scheduled to expire on January 1, 2027, and that is a date on a schedule, not a prediction about what happens to prices after it. The full breakdown is in Can an American buy a house in Ontario.

The GTA housing market, September 2026, by the numbers

September 2026	Oakville	Mississauga	Milton	Burlington	GTA
Composite benchmark (YoY)	$1,128,800 (-3.0%)	$867,500 (-3.8%)	$861,600 (-4.8%)	$840,600 (-2.8%)	$917,600 (-4.7%)
Detached benchmark	$1,573,000 (-3.0%)	$1,245,400 (-4.7%)	$1,149,000 (-6.5%)	$1,182,500 (-2.9%)	$1,196,400 (-4.8%)
Freehold townhouse benchmark	$981,200 (-5.4%)	$870,700 (-4.6%)	$787,100 (-6.1%)	$873,000 (-1.8%)	$912,000 (-4.8%)
Condo townhouse benchmark	$700,000 (-8.4%)	$677,500 (-7.0%)	$603,200 (-7.5%)	$661,200 (-7.0%)	$668,800 (-6.5%)
Condo apartment benchmark	$552,100 (-6.2%)	$488,300 (-7.6%)	$511,700 (-5.1%)	$504,000 (-4.4%)	$527,200 (-6.7%)
Sales	162	468	118	177	5,040
Average price	$1,365,169	$929,600	$1,018,973	$1,033,458	$1,006,409
Median price	$1,211,500	$868,000	$917,500	$880,000	$860,000
Active listings	1,073	2,408	522	761	26,131
Homes for sale per sale	6.6	5.1	4.4	4.3	5.2
Share of new listings selling (SNLR)	36.5%	36.5%	40.6%	46.1%	37.8%
Sold to list	96%	97%	96%	97%	98%
Days on market, current listing (LDOM)	32	36	35	34	34
Days on market, from first listing (PDOM)	56	56	56	49	51
Relist gap (PDOM minus LDOM, days)	24	20	21	15	17

Benchmarks are MLS Home Price Index values from TRREB Market Watch, September 2026. Sales, prices, listings and days on market are from Market Watch and the TRREB Halton and Peel regional reports, September 2026. Homes for sale per sale is active listings divided by sales, and the relist gap is PDOM minus LDOM. Both are my own calculations from those figures.

Want to know where your street sits on that list?

Send me your street and I will pull every listing on it from the past year, the ones that sold and the ones that did not, and tell you what the market accepted and what it refused. It takes me an afternoon, and it is the same record I build before any home I list goes to market.

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Damir Strk is a Broker with RE/MAX Realty Specialists Inc., Brokerage, and has spent more than 25 years walking houses and pricing them for sellers and buyers across Oakville, Mississauga, Milton, and Burlington. Market data source: Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) Market Watch and regional reports, September 2026.