A new report from the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) paints a grim picture of the province’s residential construction sector.

The 2025 GTA and GGH Final Housing Report Card finds that housing starts are down by 34 percent across 34 municipalities across in nine metro areas around the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Golden Horseshoe region.

The analysis, which was prepared by the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative, found that condo apartment starts were down 52 percent relative to the 2021-24 averages, while ground-oriented housing starts dropped 43 percent. The report says that housing weakness in those municipalities extends well beyond the condo market.

“The findings of this report are disturbing and confirm what we have been seeing on the ground for some time now,” says RESCON president Richard Lyall. “The cost of building a home is still too high due to taxes and government-imposed fees and levies. Builders need to be able to build homes that people can afford. Steps must be taken to get the industry back on track.”

The report found that job losses in the industry continued to mount throughout the year, with 46,562 fewer person years of employment compared to the 2021-24 averages. The negative employment impacts, while most severe in the Toronto area, are worsening in other regions of the province as well.

The report also graded the municipalities in five categories related to housing starts and sales. Of the 34 municipalities, 17 received an F, eight received a D, and nine other municipalities received a C or higher, largely unchanged from the previous report issued in December.

The report indicates that high taxes on new home construction, including development charges which have risen by more than 5,000 per cent in 25 years in some municipalities, are the primary drivers of lower home sales. Recent agreements between the federal and provincial governments to temporarily eliminate the sales taxes on new homes and plans to cut development charges will move the needle, but plenty of implementation work needs to be done.

“A lack of new home sales inevitably leads to job losses, which harms both the industry and the economy,” says Mike Moffatt, an economist and founder of the Missing Middle Initiative. “With economic growth slowing across the globe, Canada can ill-afford a slowdown in the homebuilding sector.”

This edition is the third report commissioned by RESCON that examines the state of the housing crisis.

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