Toronto Is Losing People. What Does That Actually Mean for Etobicoke Home Values?

Market Insight Dave Dubbin July 27, 2026

Here is the short answer: a shrinking population is not the price drop signal it sounds like. Toronto did lose more people than it gained last year, and that made headlines this week. But home construction is falling faster than the population is, and the June sales numbers show the market tightening, not softening. If you own in Etobicoke, the two forces are mostly cancelling each other out. If you are waiting for a crash, this is not the data that delivers one.

Curious what the current market means for your own home? Get a free home valuation and we will walk you through the numbers on your street, not just the headlines.

What Statistics Canada actually reported

The number behind the headlines is small but symbolic. According to Statistics Canada's latest population estimates, the Toronto area's population shrank by 992 people in the twelve months ending July 1, 2025. That is the first decline outside the pandemic years, and a sharp turn from a gain of more than 269,000 people just one year earlier.

The chart below shows how it happened. New immigrants and births still added a lot of people. What changed is the other side of the ledger: a net 44,792 fewer non-permanent residents as study and work permits wound down, and 64,794 more people leaving for other parts of Ontario than arriving from them. That last number is the affordability story in a single figure.

Bar chart of the components of Toronto CMA population change from July 2024 to July 2025, showing gains from immigrants and births offset by losses from deaths, emigration, non-permanent residents, and moves to other parts of Ontario, for a net change of minus 992 people

Data: Statistics Canada, Canada's population estimates: Subprovincial areas, 2025. Chart by Dave Dubbin & Associates.

A thousand people in a region of nearly seven million is a rounding error. What matters is the direction. For decades, growth was the tide that lifted every forecast for Toronto real estate. You could get a lot of things wrong and population growth would bail you out. That assumption just got its first real dent.

Why people are leaving

No mystery here. It is the cost of living, and housing is the biggest piece of it. Families who want more space are doing the math on Hamilton, Durham, Calgary, or the East Coast and deciding the commute or the career change is worth it.

Worth noting for our corner of the city: this is exactly the pressure that has kept demand steady in Etobicoke. Buyers priced out of central Toronto but not ready to leave the city altogether keep landing west of the Humber, where a detached house or a lakefront condo still costs meaningfully less than the equivalent downtown.

The other side of the scale: we are building less

The same week the population story landed, CMHC put out its mid-year housing outlook, and it is the more important read. CMHC now expects about 241,400 housing starts across Canada this year, falling to roughly 211,900 by 2028. That is three straight years of decline, driven by high construction costs, tariff uncertainty, and a pile of unsold new condos that has developers pressing pause.

So yes, demand growth is stalling. Supply growth is stalling harder. Prices are set where those two lines cross.

If you are following the market this summer, these three are worth your time:

What the June numbers are already showing

This is not a theoretical argument. TRREB's June Market Watch showed sales rising for a fourth straight month while new listings fell, down roughly 13 percent from a year earlier. The GTA benchmark price sat around $940,800 in June, still about 5 percent below last year, but the gap between buyers and available homes is narrowing month by month. Fewer listings plus steady sales is how price declines end.

If you own in Etobicoke

Two takeaways. First, the population story is not a reason to panic sell. The people leaving Toronto are disproportionately renters and would-be first-time buyers squeezed by costs, not the move-up buyers who compete for Etobicoke houses. Second, the construction slowdown quietly works in your favour. Every project that gets shelved in 2026 is supply that never shows up to compete with your resale in 2028.

If a sale is somewhere in your two-year plan, the smarter move than watching headlines is knowing your actual number and watching how it moves.

If you are buying

You are getting a rare window where prices are below their peak, rates have stopped climbing, and the long-term supply picture argues values recover. The catch is that inventory is already tightening, so the browsing phase of this market is closer to its end than its beginning. Get your financing sorted now so you can move when the right house shows up.