By Torn Parkin
December 15th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Ontario’s October permits hit a 2025 high, though that’s not saying much. At least 75 per cent of the units are for corporate ownership.
Some rebound in October, but 2025 still a down year
Dwelling units anticipated by building permits issued Jan-Oct in Ontario, 2019-2025
Building permits approved in October anticipated the highest number of Ontario housing units so far this year. But then, 2025 has been terrible, as shown by Statistic Canada data released Friday.
The number of units anticipated in permits issued in the first ten months was the lowest in 2025 for five years, down 29 per cent from the 2021 peak.
But the 9,749 units anticipated by Ontario’s October permits was a big bounce up from just 6,618 units in September. And it was the best October since 2021.
October’s bump wasn’t from likely homeownership housing, such as houses or condos. And it wasn’t from non-profit or co-op rental construction, since the Ontario Ford government opposes any approach not exclusively dependent on private capital.
The data shows October’s bump was all driven by corporate rental properties.
Healthy permit increase in Ontario
Dwelling units anticipated by building permits approved October, 2025 in Ontario
Big shift to corporate rental construction from condos
Single-unit construction, typically for owner-occupants, accounted for just 1,228 units in October, down from the pace of 2,000 to 3,000 new units per month before mid-2022.
And condominium construction, the other owner-occupied option, has utterly collapsed. From peaks of more than 4,000 units a month in 2020 and 2021, permits for condo apartments fell to just six — six! — in October 2025. Condo row houses, previously a few hundred each month, fell to 31.
The condo collapse has been caused by a financing model significantly dependent on small investor landlords.
A 2024 StatsCan report found 65 per cent of Toronto’s small condos were investor-owned.
Smaller investors use mortgage financing backed by expected rental income for pre-construction condo purchases. Condo builders then cycle their pre-construction sales revenue into their next condo project.
Or so the theory goes. In practice, falling rents and rising finance costs have crushed the spread on condo investment, freezing the pre-construction sales revenue and halting future condo projects. There has been little talk of reforms to promote condo occupant-ownership and avoid dependence on small investors.
Finance driving out homeownership
With condo construction nearing zero, in October, corporate investors rushed in to fill the vacuum.
Of the 9,749 housing units approved in October, 7,261, or 75 per cent, were for corporate apartment rental construction, a record month. Possibly it is an outlier. But the general trend toward rental corporate ownership has clear for several years.
Corporate apartment finance commonly comes from asset management companies, which raise money globally from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and extreme wealth individuals. The capital is bundled into specialized investment funds that pay returns from rents and capital gains on building resale.
The biggest asset managers in residential rental apartments are BlackStone, whose billionaire CEO, Stephen Schwarzman is a past chair of Donald Trump’s economic advisory council, and Brookfield Asset Management the company formerly headed by Mark Carney, now Canada’s prime minister. The industry does not lack for political clout.
What the finance system will build is what consumers get to choose from. And this shift in Ontario’s residential construction shows home ownership is poised to fall further as less owner-occupy housing is built.
Single units down, condos collapse, rental apartments rise
Units approved for types of buildings, Ontario, Jan 2019-Oct 2025
For young people I think that renting will be their beast option .It is good that developers are moving this way.There are certainly benefits to renting rather than shouldering dept for 30 plus year imo.
So for a number of years, condos that were being built were financed to the tune of 65% by greedy investors only in it for a sale not too much later for a hefty profit, rather than by would-be home buyers who were simply searching for a reasonably priced place to live. What could go wrong?
Well it did go terribly wrong as real home buyers were priced out of the market by those same investors who now have many vacant condos on their hands that they can’t sell because they just can’t face the fact of a loss or lower profit than they feel they deserve. Sorry, no pity for those investors. Only for the young people who are still waiting for the prices to drop to an affordable level.