Reality is Hitting Those With Defaults on their Mortgages

Housing prices in the Toronto market have fallen by as much as 21%.

In comparison, the balance delinquency rate jumped 32 per cent nationally over that same period, and was up 36 per cent in B.C.

Rebecca Oakes, vice-president of advanced analytics at Equifax Canada, said this is a reflection of “high value mortgages” (large loans) in “hot housing market regions, or historically hot housing markets,” such as the Toronto region.

“As they’re coming up for renewal, interest rates are much higher than they once were,” Oakes said. The U.S. trade tariffs have “impacted some provinces more than others,” she added, and unemployment had also gone up in Ontario over the past 12 to 18 months.

“A combination of affordability and high interest rates is really impacting those homeowners.”

The volume mortgage delinquency rate (the total number of mortgages with missed payments for 90 days or more as a percentage of the total volume of open mortgages) jumped almost 38 per cent in Ontario from 0.19 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 0.26 per cent in the first quarter of 2026.

Brampton had the biggest increases for both the volume (up 63 per cent) and balance (up 64 per cent) measures of mortgage delinquencies in the Toronto region. In the city of Toronto, volume jumped 43 per cent and balance rose 58 per cent.

Severely delinquent mortgage numbers typically are quite small because people protect their homes as much as possible, Oakes said.

But housing prices in areas like the Toronto region have dropped, just as some people are struggling to keep up with bigger monthly payments at higher interest rates.

“It’s not as easy to sell a home, it’s a bit of a buyer’s market at the moment,” she said.

Since the peak of the market in February 2022, the average sales price in the Greater Toronto Area has dropped by about 21 per cent, with the decrease deeper in some communities, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.