In a hot housing market, the cheapest homes are usually the most fought over. The Greater Toronto Area in May was the reverse. Condos are both the most affordable way into the market and the segment where buyers negotiated the largest discounts, new data from HouseSigma has found.
This market quirk sits alongside the Bank of Canada’s June 10 decision to hold its policy rate at 2.25% for a fifth straight time. With borrowing costs steady, what’s interesting is less about rates than about which property type offers the better deal, and in May that was condos.
The median GTA condo apartment sold for $549,000 in May 2026 (see infographic below). That’s down 7.7% from May 2025, the steepest decline of the three home types; detached homes, by comparison, slipped just 2.3% annually. Condos also sold for a median 3.21% below asking price, the widest gap of any home type.
The middle of the market held firmest compared with the price sellers hoped to achieve. Attached homes such as townhouses and semis sold at a median of 1.87% below asking, the closest to list of any segment, and at a median price of $853,000. Detached homes sat between the two, typically selling 2.65% under asking and at a median of $1,230,000. Across all property types, 73.9% of GTA homes sold below their list price in May, with the typical sale closing about 2.56%, or roughly $20,000, under asking.
The market as a whole is firming, even as it sits below last year. The overall median sale price was $922,050 in May, up from April and higher across all three home types, though still 4.4% below May 2025. As in much of the country, monthly prices have been edging up while year-over-year figures stay negative, so the gap with last year is closing rather than widening.
The month’s extreme sales vs list prices
The condo market is not uniformly offering deep discounts. The single largest jump from list to sale price in May was a two-bedroom North York condo apartment listed at $399,000 that sold for $660,000, 65% over asking. It’s proof that the right unit at the right price still draws a crowd even in the most-discounted segment. The biggest premium in dollar terms was a Toronto semi-detached home that sold $711,000 above its $1,599,000 list price.
The steepest discounts went the other way, at the top of the market: a North York detached bungalow listed at just under $3.75 million sold for $2,650,000, 29% below asking, which is the month’s biggest percentage drop. And the biggest dollar cut was seen by a five-bedroom luxury home, also in North York, which sold for a whopping $1.45 million under its asking price of $8,995,000.
What it all means for buyers and sellers
For buyers, those looking for a condo are getting not only the lowest entry point but also the most room to negotiate, while move-up buyers shopping the firmer middle should expect to pay much closer to asking.
For sellers, the lesson runs in the same direction, since condo sellers in particular are meeting buyers well below their initial price, and the homes that move are the ones priced to recent comparable sales rather than to last year’s market.
With the Bank of Canada keeping borrowing costs steady, neither side is waiting on cheaper money any more, and the task now is reading where each part of the market actually stands, which in May meant three very different places.
Check out the full GTA May 2026 PriceWatch infographic below for more details and breakdowns by area and property type. Mouseover or touch the price chart points to reveal the full data.
Find all your market trends data for the Greater Toronto Area here – and keep up to date with our Ontario blog page here.