Toronto’s rental market produced two eye-catching signals in the summer of 2026. Condo leasing across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) reached a quarterly record, while Toronto asking rents rose for a fourth straight month in July. Those figures point in the same direction, but they do not show that rents and leasing volume both set records in July.
The distinction matters. Urbanation’s leasing record covers the second quarter, from April through June. The July rent figure comes from the Rentals.ca and Urbanation National Rent Report and measures advertised rents across several property types. Read together, the reports suggest that tenants responded to lower rents just as the recent wave of new condo supply began to recede.
Condo leasing set a quarterly record, not a July record
Urbanation reported 18,923 GTHA condo lease transactions in Q2 2026, 5% more than a year earlier and the highest quarterly total in its series. The first-half count reached 34,150 leases, up 11% year on year. It was the third consecutive record for first-half activity.
That is strong demand, though it should not be confused with a sudden July surge. The report was released on 27 July and covers the preceding quarter. It also counts condominium lease transactions, not every rental agreement signed in Toronto.
There was already evidence of higher activity earlier in the year. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) recorded 16,365 GTA condo-apartment leases in Q1 2026, up 10.6% from Q1 2025. Its new rental listings rose by a slower 6% to 24,012. The coverage and methodology are not identical to Urbanation’s GTHA figures, so the totals should not be added together, but both show leasing demand growing faster than a year earlier.
Toronto asking rents rose again in July
The national rent report put Toronto’s average asking rent at C$2,577 in July. That was 1.6% higher than June, the strongest monthly increase among Canada’s six largest rental markets. It was Toronto’s fourth consecutive monthly rise.
Toronto had not returned to annual growth, however. Asking rents were still 0.6% below July 2025. The better description is a market approaching a turn after a long decline, not one where rents had already broken a record.
Across Canada, the average asking rent for all residential property types was C$2,037 in July 2026. That was down 4% annually, the 22nd straight annual decrease, but up 0.2% from June. Rentals.ca and Urbanation said the monthly rise was the fourth in a row after rents reached a 35-month low earlier in 2026.
Lower rents helped bring tenants back
The leasing record makes more sense when viewed against the previous two years of rent declines. Tenants who had delayed moving, shared accommodation or stayed in an existing lease found more options at lower asking prices. Some returned to the condo market.
Urbanation’s Q2 numbers show demand beginning to outrun new supply. Condo lease transactions grew 5% annually, while rental listings increased 2%. Active condo rental listings at the end of June fell 13% from a year earlier to 5,366 units. Months of supply dropped from 1.2 to 0.9, slightly below the long-term average of one month.
Average GTHA condo rent rose 2.5% from Q1 to C$2,545, or C$3.74 per square foot, for an average 681-square-foot unit. It remained 1.3% lower than a year earlier. That combination, a firm quarterly rise but a small annual decline, is consistent with a market finding a floor.
Purpose-built rentals still offered competition
Condo landlords were not the only suppliers chasing tenants. In newer purpose-built rental buildings, Urbanation recorded 1,888 units of net absorption in Q2, up 59% year on year. Yet incentives remained available at 64% of surveyed projects, most often one or two months of free rent.
Advertised or “face” rents in purpose-built buildings completed since 2000 averaged C$2,864 a month. After incentives, the average net rent was C$3.51 per square foot, a 13% discount worth about C$377 a month on the average unit. Renters comparing a condo with a professionally managed building therefore needed to look beyond the advertised monthly figure.
The vacancy rate in newer buildings that were at least one year old fell from 7.9% in Q1 to 6.8% in Q2, but it remained above the 5.5% recorded a year earlier. The market was tightening, though landlords still faced meaningful competition.
The supply pipeline is the bigger story
The recent supply wave came partly from investor-owned condos reaching completion. That flow is now slowing. Urbanation counted 38,252 condo units under construction in the GTHA at the end of Q2, down 39% from a year earlier and 64% below the Q2 2023 peak.
Purpose-built rental construction is moving in the opposite direction. Starts reached 6,291 units in the first half of 2026, 50% more than a year earlier, and 31,645 units were under construction. Urbanation estimates that roughly half of new condo supply normally enters the rental pool, however, so rising purpose-built construction may replace only part of the rental supply lost as the condo pipeline contracts.
The resale market offers another clue. TRREB said July GTA home sales slipped 0.9% annually to 5,995, while new listings fell 17.8% to 14,484. The composite benchmark price was down 4.6% year on year. These are resale figures rather than rental statistics, but they show that housing supply was tightening more broadly even while prices remained below 2025 levels.
What renters and landlords should take from the data
Renters still had leverage in mid-2026, especially where several similar units competed in the same building. Incentives, condition, included parking and the effective rent over the full lease term all mattered. The national average was also still falling annually, so Toronto’s four-month rise should not be treated as proof of a new rent boom.
Landlords had a better demand backdrop than in 2025, but pricing above comparable listings could still leave a unit vacant. The useful signal is the fall in active listings and months of supply, not the record label by itself.
For Singapore readers, the direction differs from the local market, where private residential rents rose in Q2 2026. Our earlier report on Singapore private-home leasing in Q1 2026 also shows why transaction volume and rental prices must be read separately.
Toronto’s summer data point to a transition: leasing demand strengthened after rents fell, available condo inventory contracted, and asking rents began to edge higher. The clearest evidence is a record Q2 for GTHA condo leases and a fourth monthly rise in Toronto asking rents in July. That is notable, but it is not the same as both measures setting July records.
