Joyce Plummer

In this article, the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) is releasing data on investors (i.e., owners of at least one residential property that they do not use as their principal residence) in the residential housing market by investor size. Concentration in the residential housing market is analyzed for the 2022 reference year in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia.

Highlights

• Small-scale investors (individuals) owned the largest share of investment properties in terms of assessed value across all the provinces studied, except Nova Scotia, where institutional investors, or the top 0.1% of investors in terms of the value of investment properties owned in the province, owned the largest share of investment properties.
• Of the six provinces studied, institutional investors owned 0.1% (Prince Edward Island and Manitoba) to 0.4% (Ontario) of the total stock of houses. The category “houses” includes single-detached houses, semi-detached houses, row houses and mobile homes.
• Among rental properties (investment properties not for personal use), 16.6% of their assessed value was owned by institutional investors in Prince Edward Island, compared with 38.0% in Nova Scotia.
• More than half of the total assessed value of rental properties built since 2011 were owned by institutional investors in Nova Scotia (63.1%) and New Brunswick (61.5%).
• In all 12 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) analyzed, the results showed a non-concentrated and potentially competitive rental market in CMAs and their census subdivisions (CSDs). Toronto and Vancouver had the least concentrated markets.

This report is the second annual release of the New Housing Market Report series, following the initial 2024 release. Data collection was expanded to Alberta in the second half of 2025, and the results are included in this report. Data collection will be expanded to Ontario in 2026, followed by Quebec at a later stage. List and sale prices, as well as other housing characteristics, were collected for new single-detached houses, semi-detached houses, row houses and condominium apartment dwellings (including low- and high-rise condominium apartments, stacked townhomes, duplexes, and triplexes).

National highlights

Slower pace for the new home market: Nationally, the number of for-sale housing starts (for homeowner and condominium intended markets) declined 10% year over year in 2025. This decrease in starts, along with the 35% yearly increase (December 2025) in the inventory of completed and unabsorbed units, indicated a slower housing market in 2025 compared with 2024.

Living area

Single-detached houses in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 square feet were most commonly reported in most of the CMAs covered in 2025. New single-detached houses were the most common dwelling type in 2025 in all CMAs outside British Columbia covered by this report. In the British Columbia CMAs, condominium apartments were the most popular. Units in the range of 500 to 1,000 square feet were most common in the CMAs where condominium data were available.

Summary

• Home sales in Canada rose by 0.5 % from May to June, the third increase in a row following five months of decline.
• New listings decreased by 1.3% from May to June, following a 0.9% decrease the previous month.
• Active listings increased by 0.5% in June, the second growth in three months.
• The number of months of inventory (active listings-to-sales ratio) remained unchanged at 4.8 during the month, following the first decline for this indicator since October 2025 in May.
• Market conditions tightened in June in many provinces but remained balanced at the national level, which largely reflects conditions in Ontario and B.C. that remain soft, while markets in all other provinces continue to favour sellers.
• Housing starts decreased by 14.1K from 253.1K in May to 239.0K in June (seasonally adjusted and annualized), a print below the consensus calling for 255.0K. The pullback was concentrated in urban areas (-13.3K to 227.8K), although rural starts also edged lower (-0.8K to 11.1K). Within urban areas, the multi-unit and other segment accounted for most of the decline (-10.2K to 189.9K), while single-detached starts also decreased (-3.1K to 37.9K). Among the major CMAs, starts rose in Vancouver (+4.2K to 23.8K), but declined sharply in Toronto (-12.4K to 25.4K) and more moderately in Calgary (-3.9K to 28.1K) and Montreal (-1.9K to 35.4K)
• The Teranet–National Bank Composite National House Price Index^TM declined by 0.4% from May to June on a seasonally adjusted basis. Six of the eleven CMAs included in the index posted declines during the month: Vancouver (-1.4%), Victoria (-1.2%), Calgary (-0.8%), Edmonton (-0.8%), Winnipeg (-0.6%), Ottawa-Gatineau (-0.5%), and Toronto (-0.3%). Conversely, prices rose in Hamilton (+3.2%), Quebec City (+0.7%), and Halifax (+0.6%), while they remained stable in Montreal.