Hook Formula: Symptom-first

You refresh condo listings in Toronto, spot one with a realistic price, send in a fair, clean offer, and then hear nothing back. Not a counter. Not even a no. This is the pulse of the toronto condo market right now: sellers stuck in yesterday’s prices, buyers forced to wait or move on. And the numbers are starting to show the cost of stubbornness.

The Opportunity in Toronto’s Condo Market

More condos are hitting the market in Toronto and staying there longer. It is late spring, the traditional busy season, but some active listings have been sitting for 60 to even 130 days. Seller motivation is all over the map. This makes opportunity for buyers who are ready, because it used to be that Toronto condos would get bid up in days. Now, units in pockets from CityPlace to North York are booked up with showings, but not many are selling fast.

This uneven mood in the market gives you sharper negotiating power. You do not have to compete with 10 others. Sellers with holding power are refusing reality, but some owners eventually have no choice. Every week, a few more drop their price or try to relist after sitting unsold at their dream number. According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, average condo prices in the city are down 4.3% year over year since last spring. If you know which listings are truly stale, you can target properties that should be move-in ready, but with sellers desperate enough to deal.

The best deals usually happen just after a property has failed to sell and hopes have faded. The longer a condo sits unsold, the stronger your position as a buyer. But most people are not watching for these tells. Next, let’s look at the real reason so many listings get stuck in limbo.

What is Broken: Sellers Repeating Last Year’s Moves

Every week, I talk to buyers who made full-ask or near-ask offers, only to be totally ghosted by Toronto condo sellers. One recent deal was textbook: we submitted a clean offer, fair to the current market, no ‘lowball nonsense’, for a south Toronto condo listed near $600,000. The seller did not counter, just ignored it. Not even a call back.

This is not just about pride. Most Toronto sellers are anchored to 2021 or early 2022 numbers. Their neighbour at 18 Yonge or 33 Bay Street might have sold for $715,000 back then. But today, those same units often fetch $640,000 to $670,000 if they move at all. Some owners believe waiting a few more weeks will mean a return to peak prices. But while they try to wait this out, their maintenance fees pile up, sometimes $900 a month or more, and property taxes do not stop either.

This reaction, refusing or ignoring good offers, means months of lost opportunity. In May alone, over 35% of Toronto condo listings either terminated, expired, or relisted when they could not close a deal. You can see the same story playing out across Mississauga and Vaughan, but Toronto leads the pack for price-stuck sellers. Next, I’ll show you what works differently when buyers refuse to play the old game.

The Real Solution: Skip Sellers Who Refuse to Negotiate

The usual advice in a slow market is to keep holding out for your price, or to ‘wait till the right buyer comes along.’ Here’s where I put a fence around that: right now, it makes sense to focus on listings that have already shown they will work with buyers, those who respond, counter, or even drop their price after 30 days of no action. Skip the sellers who ghost you or refuse to counter entirely.

I have seen buyers waste weeks on listings with stubborn owners, only to watch those places sit unsold, then eventually get delisted or rented out. Instead, filter for units where the sellers care enough to negotiate, those under real pressure to sell, or who have already reduced asking price at least once. Often their first drop is $10,000 or $15,000, but serious sellers sometimes cut $40,000 off their original ask just to get an offer. For buyers, this is where real opportunity lives in the toronto condo market.

If you focus on sellers who are actually listening, you will not just save yourself frustration, but also sometimes tens of thousands compared to chasing overpriced and unresponsive listings. Next up, here’s what actually changes for you when you use this approach instead of playing by the old rules.

What Buyers and Sellers Really Get (and Lose) By Facing Reality

Let’s use some hard numbers. If a seller refuses to negotiate or counter, every extra 30 days their property sits unsold can mean carrying costs of at least $2,400, $900 for maintenance fees, $500 for property taxes, $1,000 for mortgage interest. Add the actual price decline: condo prices dropped an average $38,000 from peak to this spring just on entry-level units. Sellers stuck in 2021 thinking risk missing this market entirely.

For buyers, focusing only on motivated sellers means you can negotiate prices that reflect today’s realities, not last year’s headlines. You can move into a new place faster, often with more selection. And you avoid getting strung along by an unmotivated owner who will never accept your offer anyway. So you can invest your time where there is a real shot at a deal, not waste it on properties that will still be stale months from now.

The cost of inaction for buyers? Losing out on months of settled homeownership, or having to chase up prices if the market snaps back before stubborn sellers do. Every spring has its cycle, but this year the clock is ticking especially loudly on stale condo listings. In some towers, lingering at the wrong price sets off a chain reaction, if one owner blinks and cuts by $25,000, the others often move too. So the first to take a real bid can still do better than those who hold out too long. Here’s the step-by-step system that gets you there.

Step-By-Step For Navigating Today’s Toronto Condo Market

1. Track average days on market for active condo listings (look for units over 30 or 60 days with no price drop).
2. Contact only those sellers who respond to showing requests and follow up after your visit. If you get ghosted, move on.
3. Make clean, realistic offers near where similar condos have actually sold in the past 60 days, not just what is listed.
4. Prioritise listings where there have already been price drops, terminated listings, or relistings at lower prices.
5. Be ready to act quickly when a seller finally drops to a true market number. Often, the first solid offer gets accepted before competition returns.
6. Don’t get emotionally caught up in properties with stubborn owners. The next deal is already coming onto the market tomorrow.

For sellers, the system works in reverse: check your competition weekly and watch for units in your building that suddenly close below your current ask. If three listings in your tower have dropped by $40,000 this spring, holding out much longer might just mean you lose even more by summer.

Your Questions Answered

How much longer are Toronto condos taking to sell in 2024?

Many downtown condos are now taking up to 70 days to move. In some North York and waterfront towers, there are active listings approaching 120 days. This is three times longer than average during the 2021 and 2022 booms.

Are price drops really happening in all Toronto buildings?

No, but they are common in towers with more than five active listings or where recent closed sales set lower benchmarks. Buildings like CityPlace and parts of Scarborough are seeing faster drops. Others are still slow to move, especially if there is only one listing in the building.

Do most offers still go unresponded-to?

On many listings, yes. The share of listings with ‘no counter’ has jumped in the last year. Every week, more buyers report flat-out silence instead of counters or deals. This is clearest on condos listed within $20,000 of last year’s sold prices but that do not reflect market shifts since late 2023.

For a more detailed look at how this story plays out, including why $50,000 off a listing sometimes means nothing, see Toronto Condo Discounts: Why $50,000 Off Changes Little.

If you want to track the market in real time, or actually make sense of where the opportunity is for buyers and sellers today, visit my GTA real estate agent site or send me a message for a Toronto condo review tailored to you.

Want this on your specific block

If you want to know what this means for your home or your search, send me a note. You can book a fifteen minute call, or run a free home valuation and I will send the recent comps for your street. I cover the Toronto market every week, so I can tell you what the data is doing in your neighbourhood before you make a move.