If you want an example of how the luxury real estate sector has been rapidly softening in the Greater Toronto Area, one very revealing cautionary tale is that of a high-spec new mansion in Forest Hill, which sold in 2025 for nearly $12.2 million dollars under the original listing price set back in August 2024.
The owner (possibly the developer, as this is a 2023-built home) first listed it at $19.99 million, and gradually decreased the price in new listings over the following months, finally asking $10.29 million and ending up in a power-of-sale transaction in May 2025 at $7.5 million. Even at this price, the home made our GTA 10 most expensive home sales of 2025 list. The eventual $2.79 million difference between the sale price and its final list price was still the largest dollar discount of any single GTA residential property sale in 2025.
HouseSigma’s deep dive into list-price-vs-sales-price data (see infographic below) found that nearly three-quarters of GTA home sales went for under the final asking price in 2025, with nearly one quarter going for over list. The median difference in the GTA region across 2025 was a discount of 2.5%. Condos saw slightly deeper discounts, followed by detached homes, with attached homes getting closest to asking.
The softening of the high-end sector is also evident in the fact that luxury-home-heavy areas such as King, Caledon, and Oakville were the municipalities to see the largest gaps between asking price and sale price. In contrast, Oshawa and Clarington, municipalities among the cheapest for median sale prices, saw the lowest median discounts from list price.
The individual home that went for the highest percentage amount under its final list price was not the above Forest Hill mansion, but an unassuming Scarborough bungalow whose owners had wanted $1.49 million but accepted $845,000, a reduction of 43.5%.
However, with a quarter of GTA homes going for over list price, there were some sales success stories. The home that went for the highest dollar amount over asking in 2025 was a lakefront beauty in The Beaches, right on the boardwalk, which got $1.68 million over its $2.5 million list price, for a sale at $4.18 million. The highest percentage premium was paid for a one-bed North York condo that was strategically listed at $199,000 and sold at $495,000, or 148.7% more.
Sammy Kohn, a leading HouseSigma agent in the region, said, “The GTA’s high-end homes aren’t bulletproof. Listing what a seller feels is a $10 million-plus property, only to see it sell for $7.5 million, is a clear reminder that even the priciest addresses need to respect market shifts. In today’s market, prestige alone doesn’t set the price—buyers do.”
Check out the full-year 2025 GTA PriceWatch infographic, below, to see more details and breakdowns of median sale prices and discounts by property types and municipality rankings.
Find all your market trends data for the Greater Toronto Area here – and keep up to date with our Ontario blog page here.