📊 Market Snapshot

Ontario Active Listings

↓ 5.1% YoY (75,759)

BoC Overnight Rate

2.25% (Unchanged)

5 Yr GoC Bond Yield

↑ 3.19%

Ontario Avg Home Price

↓ 2.5% YoY ($831,595)

GTA Avg Home Price

↓ 3.9% YoY ($1,058,658)

GTA Home Sales

↑ 9.4% YoY (6,770)

National Home Sales

↑ 0.9% YoY

📰 Top Story

The Economy Grew. Your Desk Helped.

Statistics Canada reported Friday that real gross domestic product rose 0.3 per cent in May, triple its own advance estimate, with 13 of 20 sectors contributing. But the line worth your attention sits further down the release. Offices of real estate agents and brokers, StatCan wrote, were particularly busy and added to growth in May — and named the cause: the spring market was warming up in Ontario and British Columbia after an extended cold snap.

That is not a forecast or a sentiment index. That is the national accounts crediting work done in your office. It follows 0.6 per cent growth in April, and June's flash estimate leaves the quarter tracking roughly 3.4 per cent annualized. The official figure lands August 28.

The Bank of Canada reached the same place two days earlier. In its summary of deliberations for the July 15 decision, Governing Council credited higher oil prices and a recovering housing market with supporting growth, and agreed the policy trade-off had diminished. Council questioned how durable the recovery is — not what was carrying it.

Which leaves last week's open question — whether lenders would move ahead of August 19. So far, no. The five-year benchmark closed Thursday at 3.19 per cent YoY, three basis points below the previous Friday after dipping to 3.16 midweek. With an additional fifty per cent duty landing on a list of Canadian goods in under three weeks, the bond market drifted down rather than up. Fixed pricing follows that yield, so the repricing your clients were bracing for has not arrived.

Why it matters

• For brokers: Your file volume is now a documented input to national GDP. That is a credibility argument you can make to a lender or a referral partner without overstating anything.

• For realtors: The agency that measures the economy says the Ontario spring market warmed. Use it where a seller still insists the market is dead — it is harder than any comparable you can pull.

• For everyone: Activity showed up in the national accounts before it showed up in prices. That order matters, and it usually holds.

🗞️ Rest of the News

Renewals Are Carrying the Book Now

First National Financial reported second-quarter results on July 29 showing total mortgage originations and renewals of $12.2 billion, down 12 per cent from $13.8 billion a year earlier. Single-family volume fell 11 per cent to $7.7 billion and multi-unit residential and commercial fell 12 per cent to $4.5 billion, which the company attributed to a slower housing market and sharper competition. Mortgages under administration still climbed roughly 6 per cent to $169.8 billion, because higher renewal volumes — including mortgages written during the elevated activity of 2021 — offset the decline in new business. Revenue fell 9 per cent to $565.2 million.

Why it matters:

One of the top three lenders in the broker channel has told the market where the next two quarters live — it expects new single-family originations to stay below year-ago levels while renewal activity runs above them.

Ontario's Realtor Count Just Fell

There were 84,798 realtors and salespeople registered in Ontario at the end of last year, according to RECO — down 1.3 per cent from 2024, and the first decrease in licensed registrants in at least eight years. The province remains the country's largest real estate market by a wide margin, and the decline arrives in the same week the national accounts credited real estate offices with contributing to May's growth. Separately, RECO opened applications on July 30 for its Industry Advisory Council, the body through which registrants feed input into a regulator that has been run by a provincially appointed administrator since December.

Why it matters:

The people leaving are the ones who arrived when transactions were easy, which means the agents still standing are competing against a smaller and more experienced field than the headcount of three years ago would suggest.

FSRA Puts a Price on Holding Out

Ontario's financial services regulator refused on July 28 to renew the mortgage broker licence of Masoud Asnafi and imposed administrative penalties of $95,000 on him and $10,000 on Approved Mortgage Brokers, an unlicensed entity he controlled. The Financial Services Tribunal found the pair had falsely represented that entity as a mortgage brokerage, contrary to section 11 of the Mortgage Brokerages, Lenders and Administrators Act and section 9 of Ontario Regulation 187/08. FSRA's director of litigation and enforcement, Elissa Sinha, said the regulator would not hesitate to act where licensees threaten the integrity of the mortgage application process.

Why it matters:

The penalty attached to the individual, not just the shell, and it followed a full tribunal decision rather than a settlement — FSRA is prepared to litigate holding-out cases to conclusion rather than negotiate them away.

Infrastructure Money Now Comes With Conditions

Ottawa and Queen's Park announced nearly $2.9 million on Friday to build 30 affordable seniors' units in Whitby, with the Regional Municipality of Durham adding $7.3 million. The project is modest. The mechanism behind it is not. Under the Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build, the two governments are cost-matching $8.8 billion over ten years for housing-enabling infrastructure in Ontario — and the release states plainly that funding will be prioritized for municipalities that reduce, and then maintain reductions on, development charges. Cutting a charge once no longer earns the money. Keeping it cut does.

Why it matters:

This tells you where construction economics improve next, council by council — and it gives municipalities a standing financial reason not to quietly restore a charge they cut last year, which is exactly the reversal your pre-construction clients have been underwriting against.

Regional Spotlight: PETERBOROUGH

Four straight months of quiet growth

Peterborough County, including the city, recorded 216 sales in June, up 5.4 per cent from 205 in May, with the average sale price essentially flat at $708,815 — down six-tenths of a per cent from the month before. New listings held steady at 548 and homes took an average of 37 days to sell. Note the frame: the Central Lakes Association of REALTORS® reports month over month rather than year over year, so these are sequential comparisons, not annual ones.

The regional picture is what makes it interesting. June was the fourth consecutive month in which all six Central Lakes regions posted month-over-month sales growth — 1,617 sales in total across the association. But the pace varies sharply inside it. Durham moved 816 homes at an average of $853,827 in 25 days; Prince Edward County moved 47 at $758,304 in 46. Peterborough sits between them on both counts.

Why it matters

• For realtors: Days on market is the number that separates these communities, not price. A listing strategy that works in Durham at 25 days will read as overpriced in a market averaging 37 or 46 — set the timeline expectation with the seller before the price.

• For mortgage brokers: Average prices between roughly $540,000 and $855,000 across the six regions keep most of this territory inside insured lending. Rate holds matter more here than in the GTA, because files that take 37 to 46 days to firm can outrun a shorter hold.

⚡ Quick Hits

• APARTMENTS ARE TAKING THE HIT — Ontario's benchmark apartment price fell 8.0 per cent year over year in June, against 4.2 per cent for single-family homes and 6.6 per cent for townhouses.

• BUYER BEWARE STILL RULES — outside Quebec, disclosing a death or criminal history at a property falls under caveat emptor, and Ontario's association says agents should surface it rather than assume the law will.

• THE STREET SEES A HIKE, NOT A CUT — the Bank's Market Participants Survey, fielded June 11 to 18, puts the next policy move as an increase in 2027 rather than a cut.

• OREA DROPS THE "YOUNG" — the association rebranded its Young Professionals Network, saying it wants a space for members at every career stage rather than one age bracket.

⛏️ Tip of the Week

Work Your Renewal Book

First National just told the market that new single-family originations will stay below last year for two more quarters while renewals run above. Read that as a scheduling instruction. Pull every file maturing between now and next spring, sort by funding year, and start with 2021 — those borrowers took short terms into a very different rate environment and most have not heard from anyone. The lender has told you where the volume is. The question is whether you reach it before the incumbent's renewal letter does.

⁉️ Trivia / Poll

Question: How many realtors and salespeople were registered in Ontario at the end of last year?

A) 62,400

B) 71,300

C) 84,798

D) 96,150

(Answer at the bottom.)

📓 Closing Note

Two numbers landed days apart and only make sense together. The national accounts say real estate offices helped carry the economy in May. The regulator says there are fewer people in those offices than the year before. That is not a contradiction. Volume is returning to a smaller field — good news for whoever still holds a licence when the fall market opens.

The next two weeks decide the tone. CREA's national numbers land August 18 and the tariffs August 19, with TRREB's July figures arriving before either. By next Tuesday we should know whether July held the line June drew.

See you next Tuesday.

Answer: C) 84,798 — down 1.3 per cent from 2024, and the first annual decline in licensed Ontario registrants in at least eight years.

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