Builders have given up trying to sell thousands of condo units in Toronto over the past five years, data shows, as the city’s housing market grinds almost to a complete standstill.

Between 2020 and 2025, 25 projects have stopped sales on more than 3,200 new units in and around Toronto, numbers pulled together by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) reveal.

“What we’re seeing in the marketplace right now, to use the industry phrase, is projects not pencilling,” Dave Wilkes, president and CEO of BILD, told Global News.

“From a builder’s point of view, projects aren’t proceeding; they’re not getting off the ground. They’re not being able to move forward and deliver that much-needed housing.”

A total of six projects stopped selling in 2020, with five more giving up the following year. In 2022, 10 projects abandoned sales attempts, while four more folded in 2023.

BILD said no projects had stopped selling in 2024 or 2025 because fewer than 10 highrises have even tried to launch over the last two years, as builders struggle to make the costs work and buyers stay away.

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“We’re not seeing projects fail — we’re not seeing them start,” Wilkes said. “It’s just that they can’t get off the ground because that cost to build has reached a point which is just far too high … we have a cost-to-build issue that we need to address.”

Wilkes said the result of projects in and around Toronto failing to start will be a “severe shortage of housing” in 2027 and 2028.

Data pulled together by Altus Group for BILD shows that just 54 new condos were sold in Toronto in October. That’s down from 145 in October 2024 and 457 in October 2023.

The low sales matter to builders because most condominium projects require the majority of their units to be sold in order to finalize financing to get construction off the ground.

The bleak housing figures are in line with a recent report from the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative, which found housing starts are still falling in the province.

The study said there were 51 per cent fewer condo apartment starts in the first three quarters, along with 43 per cent fewer ground-oriented housing starts. However, purpose-built rentals were up 42 per cent compared with the previous four years.

Council president Richard Lyall said the data shows “we are staring into the abyss” when it comes to residential construction.

The Ford government, which is technically still aiming to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031, is hoping a recent round of legislation will kick the market back into gear by the spring.

It’s an aim critics have said they are unconvinced will bear fruit.

–with files from The Canadian Press

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