Toronto housing starts fall 61% in September as Calgary, Vancouver gain

Toronto began 1,440 homes in September, down 61 per cent from 3,678 a year earlier, while Calgary and Vancouver both posted gains, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data released Oct. 16.

The city-level figures, drawn from CMHC’s September housing starts release, show a sharp split behind the national headline. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted annual rate rose about three per cent to 248,896 units from 242,223 in August, as we reported earlier. Actual starts in centres of 10,000 or more people totalled 19,984, down 11 per cent from 22,375 a year ago.

How the five largest markets compare

Using CMHC’s actual-start counts for September 2026 against September 2025, Montreal fell 51 per cent to 1,266 from 2,610, and Edmonton fell 13 per cent to 1,548 from 1,783. Calgary rose 12 per cent to 2,535 from 2,261, and Vancouver rose 27 per cent to 2,491 from 1,968.

Calgary led the five markets in absolute terms for the month, ahead of Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal. By our calculation, the five cities together accounted for 9,280 of the 19,984 starts, or about 46 per cent.

Monthly actual counts swing widely, so CMHC’s six-month trend is the steadier read. On that measure, the annual pace in Toronto was 24,837 in September, down about one per cent from August. Montreal’s trend fell eight per cent to 28,015. Vancouver’s rose six per cent to 25,948, Calgary’s rose seven per cent to 24,882, and Edmonton’s rose five per cent to 20,771.

The trend figures soften the Toronto picture: the city’s six-month pace is nearly flat, which means September’s 61 per cent drop reflects a weak month measured against a much higher one a year earlier, rather than a sustained collapse. The same trend data show Montreal losing ground more clearly.

The condo effect

The pattern fits CMHC’s own diagnosis of where building has weakened. In its fall housing supply report, as reported by Storeys on Sept. 14, developers started just 156 condo units in Toronto in the first half of 2026, against a decade average of roughly 7,000 a year. Population-adjusted starts in the first half were the lowest since 1996, excluding last year, according to the report.

Rental construction is partly filling the gap. Storeys reported that Toronto rental apartment starts rose 82 per cent in the first half of 2026 from a year earlier and outpaced condo starts for the first time since 1994. In Vancouver, rentals made up about 60 per cent of starts, up from under 20 per cent a decade ago, while condo apartment starts fell a further 40 per cent, the weakest first half for condos since 2011.

CMHC estimates Vancouver is 5,000 to 7,000 units a year short of the pace needed to restore pre-pandemic affordability by 2036, and that Toronto needs at least 50 per cent more starts over the next decade, or 21,000 to 26,000 additional homes a year. Storeys reported that the gap widened in Montreal and narrowed in Calgary, without giving figures.

What to watch

Aled ab Iorwerth, CMHC’s deputy chief economist, said that “a key risk for Canada now is not building enough during this period of softening housing markets across the country.”

One month of city data does not make a trend, and CMHC’s release does not break September starts out by tenure, so it cannot show how much of Toronto’s drop came from condos and how much from other types. The next release, due Nov. 17, will show whether Toronto’s actual starts rebound or whether Calgary and Vancouver’s gains hold.

Sources: CMHC housing starts release (Oct. 16, 2026); CMHC Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report as reported by Storeys (Sept. 14, 2026). Percentage changes and totals marked as our calculation are derived from CMHC’s published counts.