Wow, what a weekend that was!

Say what you want about the market, whether it’s up, down, or sideways, but it’s most certainly keeping market participants on its toes.

On Friday night, we received a bully offer on one of our east-side listings, which could have ruined a lot of folks’ Friday night, but our clients decided they wanted to wait until the offer night.

On Saturday, we sold a townhouse in the 905, which, on its own, is a feat.  But considering we had only one showing in a week and that one showing turned into an offer, and a subsequent sale, I think this is “feather in cap time.”

On Sunday afternoon, clients of mine purchased a home off-market, which seems to be one of the big stories so far (at least on TRB) in the first nine weeks of 2026.

We held three open houses on the weekend, and it was a bit of a “three little bears” situation.  One was cool, with three groups through.  One was warm, with seven groups through, and one was hot, with fifteen groups through.

We have “offer nights” on two listings this evening, Monday, that is.

Overall, it’s been a very busy few days, and this most certainly represents a change from the first eight weeks of 2026.

The pace in January and February was slow at times, slow in certain areas, and slow in certain price points, and yet in other areas, it was the complete opposite.

I’ve had colleagues lose in 14-15 offer melees, both here in the central core and as far as Milton, if you can believe it.

I lost to a bully offer on Thursday night, on a house where there were four offers submitted before the scheduled offer date.

There’s market activity out there, and yet when I look at the February TRREB stats, there’s very little that isn’t bleak.

The sales figures, which we’ll get to in a moment, are at catastrophically low levels.  I’ve made an argument throughout the 2026’s infancy that this is, at least in part, due to low levels of inventory, and super low levels of quality inventory, but there’s no statistic to track the latter.

The TRB readers have noted that, in their neighbourhoods, there’s very little for sale, as well as the fact that so many of the listings are “dog crate condos,” as one reader put it.

If I had to use a word to describe 2026 so far, it would likely be “transitional.”  It feels like we’re continuing where 2025 left off, and moving toward the next phase of the market, whatever that is.

Recall that in January, the average TRREB home price declined below the $1,000,000 mark for the first time since January of 2021.

$973,289.

“A number that will live in infamy,” if you want to dramatize this.

That was an absolute shocker, in my opinion.  While the January price can be depressed, I just never thought that it would be lower than December’s.

It’s worth noting that the average home price declined from December to January in each of 2023, 2024, 2025, and now 2026, so while perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, it was, nonetheless.

We talked a lot last month about how miserable January was, how many snowstorms there were, and how this affected the market.  Excuse the excuse, folks, but there wasn’t a ton of motivation among the buyer pool to get out and hit the pavement in January, especially when you consider what limited inventory there was.

This sort of thing started to happen in February:

There were twelve offers on this house, and it was fully expected, in my opinion.

This house was a “10.”  It was the kind of house that the young, first-time buyers drool over, and I had people coming into our open house this past weekend who had lost on this one.

Then we also saw things like this:

This sold for $1,550,000 in August of 2022, which really complicated things.

How has the market moved since then?

Since August of 2022, the average GTA home price (using data from January of 2026) is down 9.8%.

Use the 416 average home price, and the market is down 8.1%.

Use the GTA Home Price Index (HPI), and the market is down 16.8%.  Comparatively, the 416 HPI is down even more, at 17.4%.

The buyer pool was looking at this sale price and saying, “Well, I’m obviously going to subtract from that sale price, since the market is down.”

Totally fair, right?

So how did it sell for $1,800,000?

That’s an increase of 16.1%, when all the home price metrics are telling us that the home is worth less.

You can call this an outlier, if you want.  But you can also point to the fact that quality inventory is low, and not every house in the GTA is going to fall under the umbrella of average price metrics.

There are certain property types, in certain areas, in certain price points that are worth more today than last year, or even August of 2022.

Having said that, there are a lot more property types that are worth less, and that’s quite evident from the home price statistics over the last two-plus years.

Let’s look at those stats now:

The average GTA home price increased last month by 3.7%, which brings it back above the $1,000,000 mark.

Is that a bullish indicator?

Perhaps.

A contrarian might say that January’s home price figure was so poor that it would take a massive spike in home prices from here on out to counteract that damage.

But a more analytical person (or one who reads this feature every month…) would ask, “What usually happens from January to February?”

Do prices usually increase?  Decrease?  By how much?

That’s what we want to look at next:

The average GTA home price has increased every single January to February from 2002 to current.

I don’t know if there are another two months in the calendar with this relationship over the last quarter-century, but suffice it to say, the increase was expected.

Having said that, it’s “only” a 3.7% increase.

Last year’s increase was 4.2%, and last year was a declining year.

In 2024, the increase was a whopping 8.0%, and that too was a declining year.

So I’m inclined to say that the February home price metric, despite increasing by 3.7%, is poor.

On a year-over-year basis, the average home price in February was down 7.1%.

That year-over-year figure in January was only 6.5%.

So can we conclude that the average home price is decreasing at an increasing rate?

Not yet.  It’s only been two months.  But this is something we’ll want to draw attention to in this space next month.

Here’s how the last three years’ average home prices look on a graph:

Clearly, the 2026 data is well below 2024-2025.  Again, it’s only been two months, and it’s worth noting that January of 2025 was higher than January of 2024, so there’s always divergences early on in the year.  But as I said above, this bears monitoring as we move into prime spring months.

Now, what of sales?

In January, we saw the second-lowest sales figure in any month of January this millennium.

Did that continue into February?

Nope.

Ha, tricked ya!

It’s worse!

Instead of being the second-lowest, it’s the lowest.  And it’s not even close.

Sales are abysmal right now, and while that’s partially due to inventory, there’s no question that low demand in the condo market is playing a pivotal role.

As with the average home price, we’ve seen an increase in sales from January to February every year from 2002 to current:

It’s easy to spot the outlier in the chart above, right?

That meagre 4.9% increase in 2025 is what I call “The Trump Effect.”  Yeah, that was an interesting month…

It’s very early to pace out sales for the year, but we’re clearly lagging the last three years, which were three of the lowest years on record:

As for new listings, consider that in January, we saw the sixth-most new listings in any month of January.  This meant that, for all the complaining I did about the “lack of inventory,” the bears and gentle trolls were able to call me out.

That changed last month:

February saw the sixteenth–most new listings, or more accurately, the tenth-fewest.

Now, when you consider how many of those are “dog crate condos,” McMansions in the 905, or re-lists from 2025, pehaps you can finally understand what I’m talking about when I refer to the inventory “problem.”

Furthermore, consider that the average movement in new listings from January to February is an increase of 18.3%.

Except last month, inventory declined:

Like I said: INVENTORY PROBLEM.

Only four times in the previous twenty-four years have we seen a decline in inventory from January to February.

Enough said.

But if you want another bearish indicator, simply put those sales and listings figures together, spit out historically abysmal absorption rate, and voila:

The second-lowest absorption rate in any month of February, ahead of only last year.

Speaking of “ahead of last year,” recall that the absorption rate in January was lower.  So when we see this on a chart, it almost looks like the start of a new trend:

Maybe it’s just one month.  Or maybe it’s the start of a trend.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s the market turning around!

Or maybe it’s just one month…

There wasn’t too big a difference with the absorption rate across the five major TRREB districts, but it was worth noting regardless:

I’m not surprised to see the 416 leading out ahead, with Durham trailing behind.

I suspect that if there weren’t so many condos in the 416, proportionately, this figure would be much higher.

All in all, that was a very interesting month!

And if the first week of March is any indication, the main event is still yet to come…