Canadian luxury market performance led by Montreal and Calgary as attainable housing prices, measured confidence support sales
2025 Mid-Year Highlights
- Escalating tensions in the Canada–U.S. trade dispute, mounting economic uncertainty and intensifying geo-political conflicts eroded consumer confidence and sidelined many Canadian homebuyers in the first half of 2025.
- Montreal’s luxury market outperformed national trends in the first half of 2025, as residential sales over $1 million increased 26% year-over-year, and sales above $4 million saw annual gains of 22%.
- Following a record-setting seller’s market in 2024, Calgary’s luxury housing market came into balance over the first half of the year as residential sales over $1 million saw a modest 3% uptick, while $4 million-plus sales were up 43% year-over-year. Sustained population growth from recent years continued to underpin local housing demand.
- In the Greater Toronto Area, the ultra-luxury residential market diverged from broader trends, recording twelve properties sold over $10 million on MLS® in the first half of 2025, up 200% from four sales in this price segment in the same period last year. However, this outlier was in contrast to a broader decline in luxury sales, as $4 million-plus transactions were down 28% year-over-year and buyers’ market conditions became endemic.
- Vancouver’s luxury market also contracted sharply in the first half of the year. Following a modest renewal in January, declining consumer confidence resulted in a steep 51% annual decline in sales over $4 million. The city recorded two sales over $10 million on MLS during this time, compared to seven ultra-luxury properties sold above this price in the first half of 2024.
- The cities of Toronto and Vancouver’s top-tier condominium markets remained under pressure in the first half of 2025 as rising inventory and fading demand slowed absorption; sales over $1 million sustained annual declines of 26% and 24%, respectively. Calgary condominium sales over $1 million were down a nominal 8%, while Montreal defied this trend, recording annual gains of 22% in its $1 million-plus condominium segment as relatively affordable prices and steady interest rates enabled buyers and sellers to upgrade into the top-tier market.
TORONTO, July 16, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Deepening Canada-U.S. trade tensions and mounting economic and unemployment uncertainty triggered a nation-wide slowdown in residential sales activity through the first four months of 2025, as national consumer confidence in current economic conditions, personal financial positions and the short-term employment outlook fell to record lows. Despite easing monetary policy and steadying mortgage rates following two consecutive Bank of Canada decisions to hold its overnight lending rate at 2.75%, consumer apprehension and persistently high benchmark housing prices in excess of $1 million weighed on the Toronto and Vancouver markets through much of the first half of the year, discouraging buyers from pursuing upward housing mobility and slowing market activity as a result. In comparison, relatively attainable benchmark housing prices in Montreal (CMA) and Calgary, reported at $580,100 and $583,000 in May 2025 by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), played a role in supporting upward mobility, sales activity and consumer confidence overall.
According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada’s Top-Tier Real Estate: 2025 Mid-Year State of Luxury Report, residential sales in Canada’s largest luxury real estate market declined in the first half of 2025 as uncertainty slowed activity across much of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). However, the region’s ultra-luxury real estate market defied headwinds, while sales activity in several of Toronto’s most prestigious neighbourhoods remained resilient. While residential sales over $1 million and luxury sales above $4 million fell 23% and 28% year-over-year respectively in the GTA, the $10 million–plus segment gained ground with twelve MLS-recorded sales over $10 million, up 200% from four properties sold during the same period last year. According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, off-market sales transactions in this elite tier saw notable gains.
In Vancouver, residential sales over $4 million fell 51% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, with two transactions above $10 million recorded on MLS compared to seven in the same period in 2024. This represented the steepest annual decline among Canada’s major metropolitan real estate markets where sales in the $4 million-plus segment fell, while others saw gains. Sales of properties priced above $1 million also fell 26% compared to the same period last year.
Montreal’s luxury housing market defied national headwinds in the first half of 2025, posting consistent sales gains across all property types in the $1 million-plus segment. As mortgage lending rates eased, relatively attainable housing prices enabled buyers to progress into higher-end markets, supporting market momentum and confidence. In the first half of 2025, residential sales above $1 million climbed 26% year-over-year while transactions over $4 million increased 22%, reinforcing seller’s market conditions and robust price gains.
Despite vulnerabilities in Alberta’s resource sector due to fluctuating oil prices, strong gains in employment and an increase of 1.4% in GDP are projected for the province in 2025, according to the Conference Board of Canada. Furthermore, the province of Alberta saw a net, year-over-year gain of 28,496 new residents in the first quarter of 2025 alone, according to Statistics Canada. These advantages helped buffer Calgary’s luxury real estate market from other economic pressures, however, the city receded from the heated seller’s market conditions of 2024. Overall, in the first half of 2025, residential sales over $1 million were up 3% year-over-year as the market rebalanced. Ten properties sold over $4 million, compared to seven sold in the first half of 2024, a 43% improvement.
“Canada’s luxury real estate market continued to show resilience in the first half of 2025, despite persistent macroeconomic volatility and uncertainty,” says Effi Barak, President of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. “Montreal and Calgary led performance across the country, with healthy sales activity supported by relatively attainable housing prices and measured consumer confidence. These conditions enabled upward mobility and sustained demand across the luxury market. While overall activity in Toronto and Vancouver remained subdued in the first half of the year, premier neighbourhoods in both cities continued to attract interest. In Toronto, ultra-luxury sales outperformed the prior year, underscoring the ongoing confidence of high-net-worth buyers in premier assets.”
“A modest month-over-month uptick in national sales in May indicates that some motivated buyers are beginning to re-engage—though activity remains below year-ago levels,” added Barak. “In today’s environment, real estate continues to serve as a stable store of long-term value and diversification. We expect selective resilience to persist, grounded in the essential role that housing plays in Canadians’ financial and personal lives.”
Vancouver
Economic and geopolitical uncertainty weighed heavily on the City of Vancouver’s conventional and luxury housing market in the first half of 2025. Consumer sentiment and sales activity remained largely restrained, as buyers paused and awaited greater economic clarity– conditions that did not meaningfully improve in light of heightening global volatility. Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (GVR) reported that as of May, year-to-date housing sales were amongst the slowest starts in a decade and inventory across Metro Vancouver surged to a ten-year high. This June, GVR reported that residential sales in the region were down 9.8% from June 2024 levels.
In the first half of 2025, luxury residential sales over $4 million (condominiums, attached and single family homes) fell 51% year-over-year to 85 properties sold in the City of Vancouver. Transactions over $1 million declined 26% to 1,760 properties sold overall. The ultra-luxury $10 million-plus segment saw a drop in activity with two sales on MLS recorded during this time, compared to seven in the same period of 2024. $1 million – $2 million sales fell 19% year-over-year to 1,194 properties sold, while sales in the $2 million–$4 million range dropped 35% to 481 properties.
Overall, Vancouver’s luxury sales performance saw the most significant annual percentage declines of Canada’s major metropolitan markets in the first half of 2025. The city experienced a 51% year-over-year decrease in $4 million-plus residential sales, surpassing the City of Toronto’s decline of 23%. Meanwhile sales in this price range rose 22% in Montreal and 43% in Calgary. At the same time, Vancouver’s 26% annual decline in residential sales over $1 million outpaced the 13% decrease in the City of Toronto, while Montreal and Calgary saw annual gains of 26% and 3% respectively.
According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts, the city’s elevated housing prices eroded some of the potential traction gained from stabilizing interest rates as the central bank held rates at 2.75% through the first half of the year. Although the luxury market is less sensitive to interest rates changes due to the greater financial resilience of prospective buyers, any potential momentum from conventional buyers moving up into the entry-level top-tier or luxury market stalled, as Greater Vancouver’s benchmark home price of $1,177,100—the highest among Canada’s major cities, according to the MLS Home Price Index in May—kept upward mobility out of reach.
The pullback in luxury sales activity extended across all segments of the city’s housing market in the first half of 2025. Sales of luxury single family home sales over $4 million experienced a significant 52% year-over-year decline to 75 homes sold, while sales in the ultra-luxury segment of $10 million were down from seven homes sold in the same period last year, to two homes sold between January 1– June 30. Overall, single family home sales over $1 million fell 32% year-over-year to 653 transactions in the first half of 2025.
Sales activity also cooled across the top-tier attached home market. Between January 1– June 30, 553 attached homes over $1 million were sold, a decline of 20% compared to the first half of 2024. There were no sales of attached homes over $4 million compared to three transactions reported last year.
Elevated inventory and waning investor and consumer confidence continued to weigh on Vancouver’s high-end condominium market. Luxury condominium sales over $4 million fell 29% to 10 units sold, with no sales taking place in the $10 million-plus market segment, as was the case in the same period last year. Overall, 554 condominiums sold over $1 million in Vancouver in the first half of 2025, down 24% year-over-year.
Vancouver’s luxury housing market is poised for a cautious summer, as the hesitant, “wait and see” sentiment that defined the first half of 2025 lingers. Lukewarm consumer confidence, over-arching economic uncertainty and abundant inventory continue to weigh the market in favour of buyers. However, the city continues to endure pent-up demand for upward mobility. While a dramatic rebound is unlikely this summer, Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts remain cautiously optimistic that activity will renew in the months ahead1.
Calgary
Calgary’s luxury real estate market remained buoyant in the first half of 2025, even as improving inventory provided buyers more choice and eased last year’s heated seller’s conditions. Despite economic risks posed by U.S. tariffs and oil price volatility, as well as a brief lull in activity prior to the federal election, housing demand continued to be fortified by recent population gains and enduring consumer confidence. An increase in property listings gave buyers more choice, while stable mortgage rates and the city’s relative housing affordability empowered homeowners to trade up. This supported healthy activity across the city’s conventional, entry-level luxury and premium luxury segments.
Overall, in the first half of 2025, Calgary’s luxury segment aligned with the broader recalibration of the city’s housing market towards more balanced conditions. Residential sales above $1 million (condominiums, attached and single family homes) were up 3% year-over-year, with 1,164 properties sold. Of these homes sold, 10 transactions were reported in the luxury $4 million-plus segment, up from seven properties sold in the first half of 2024. Consistent with the same period of 2024, there were no sales recorded in the ultra-luxury $10 million-plus segment during this time.
Single family homes made up 83% of luxury transactions over $1 million in the first half of 2025– the same percentage as in the same period of 2024—reinforcing their status as the city’s top choice among luxury buyers. However, as the market rebalanced, single family home sales over $1 million were up a modest 3% year-over-year to 971 homes sold between January 1– June 30. 10 transactions were reported in the $4 million-plus segment from seven units sold in the first half of 2024. As with the same period last year, there were no single family home sales above $10 million.
Demand for Calgary’s top-tier attached homes remained steady in the first half of 2025, particularly from entry-level and first-time luxury homebuyers seeking more attainable alternatives to single family homes. In the first half of 2025, attached home sales above $1 million increased a modest 6% year-over-year. There were no sales reported above $4 million during this period, consistent with the first half of 2024.
Luxury condominium sales continued to comprise a very small share, 3%, of the city’s $1 million-plus residential market in the first half of 2025. Overall, luxury condominium sales over $1 million decreased by 8% year-over-year to 35 properties sold between January 1– June 30. Consistent with the first half of 2024, there were no sales over $4 million during this time.
Although Calgary’s luxury market has eased from the record-setting seller’s conditions of the previous year, local consumer confidence has endured, according to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts. Meanwhile, events such as the G7 Leaders’ Summit and Calgary Stampede continue to elevate the city’s national and global profile. Overall, the city remains positioned for tempered, but healthy activity in the season ahead.
Toronto
After a promising start to 2025, sales momentum in the Greater Toronto Area (Durham, Halton, Peel, Toronto and York) luxury real estate market was subdued in the second quarter, as ongoing geopolitical instability and the U.S.-Canada trade war weighed on economic and consumer confidence. Despite steadying interest rates and greater domestic political certainty following the outcome of Canada’s federal election, the country’s largest real estate market continued to lean toward buyers, albeit with performance diverging across neighborhoods and housing types. In premier neighbourhoods, limited supply and resilient demand continued to persist. The region’s single family home market also saw sales over $10 million surpass last year’s performance, highlighting the sustained confidence among high-net-worth buyers in premier assets.
Despite these highlights, luxury residential real estate sales over $4 million (condominiums, attached and single family homes) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) saw a decline in the first half of 2025, falling 28% year-over-year to 222 properties sold on MLS between January 1 – June 30. Sales of properties priced over $1 million experienced a 23% annual decline to 13,563 units sold in the first half of 2025. In contrast, ultra-luxury sales over $10 million increased 200% year-over-year, with twelve properties– all single family homes– sold on MLS between January 1–June 30. This compared to four $10 million-plus properties sold in the same period of 2024. Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts also reported an increase in ultra-luxury real estate transactions occurring “off-market” as sellers increasingly sought greater discretion and privacy in the sale of their properties.
Within the City of Toronto, luxury residential real estate activity was also muted, as prospective buyers delayed decisions. Overall, sales of top-tier properties over $1 million declined 13% annually to 4,951 properties sold in the first six months of the year, while sales over $4 million fell 23% year-over-year to 142 properties sold in the first half of 2025. Despite this general trajectory, ultra-luxury transactions over $10 million more than doubled to seven properties sold on MLS, compared to three sold in the same period a year prior.
While demand for single family homes continued to lead the luxury segment, accounting for 88% of GTA residential sales over $4 million in the first half of the year, transaction volume fell 30% year-over-year, with 196 properties sold compared to the same period in 2024. In contrast, ultra-luxury home sales over $10 million climbed 200% year-over-year to 12 properties sold, representing 100% of the residential sales above this price threshold in the GTA during this time. Overall, single family home sales priced over $1 million fell 23% to 9,952 homes sold in the first half of 2025.
Within the City of Toronto, pent-up demand for luxury single family homes persisted; however, prolonged home search timelines and buyer hesitancy contributed to slow absorption. Sales over $4 million were down 24% year-over-year to 119 homes sold in the first half of 2025. Seven single family homes sold above the $10 million threshold on MLS, more than double the three units sold in the same period of 2024. In total, 2,989 single family homes sold over $1 million in the city in the first half of the year, marking an annual decline of 14%. According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts, sales activity is being driven by local end-user demand, particularly among buyers responding to key life stages such as household formation, expanding families and educational planning. Luxury single family homes in prestigious neighbourhoods near top-tier schools, including Leaside, Riverdale, Upper Forest Hill, High Park and The Kingsway, remain coveted by prospective buyers.
Across the GTA, $1 million-plus attached home sales declined 21% year-over-year to 2,673 units sold between January 1– June 30. Of these transactions, eight attached homes sold over $4 million in the first half of 2025, up from seven sold in the same period of 2024– with none of these transactions taking place over $10 million. All $4 million-plus attached home sales took place within the City of Toronto. Overall, $1 million-plus attached home sales within the city held steady, with a modest 1% year-over-year decline to 1,261 units sold.
Buyer’s market conditions remained pervasive across the GTA’s luxury condominium segment in the first half of 2025, as inventory surged, purchasing timelines lengthened and price negotiations skewed in favour of prospective buyers. Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts report that cautious investors have retreated from Toronto’s condominium market, shifting the buyer profile toward end-users with highly selective lifestyle-driven preferences. Overall, between January 1– June 30, sales of luxury condominiums priced over $4 million in the GTA fell 18% to 18 units sold. There were no sales recorded above the $10 million threshold, consistent with the same period in 2024. Meanwhile, overall condominium sales over $1 million were down 29% year-over-year to 938 units, reflecting buyer hesitancy in an uncertain market.
Within the City of Toronto, luxury condominium sales over $4 million were down 29% year-over-year in the first half of 2025 to 15 units sold. As in the same period of 2024, there were no recorded MLS transactions above $10 million during this period. $1 million-plus condominium sales in Toronto fell 26% to 701 units during this time.
As the first half of 2025 drew to a close, threats to the Canadian economy continued to influence consumer sentiment across the region’s conventional and luxury markets. With active listings up more than 30% in June according to TRREB, and absorption rates lagging, buyer-friendly conditions are expected to persist across much of the region’s conventional and luxury segments through the summer months.
Montreal
The City of Montreal emerged as one of Canada’s most active and dynamic major metropolitan luxury real estate markets in the first half of 2025, with year-over-year percentage gains in residential sales over $1 million and $4 million surpassing the cities of Toronto and Vancouver. As mortgage lending rates stabilized, Montreal’s comparatively accessible housing prices enabled buyers across the spectrum to move up the property ladder into higher-end properties. This bolstered consumer confidence and drove new listings and sales activity across the market.
According to the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB), overall residential sales in the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area rose 10% year-over-year by the end of May. Upward momentum was also seen in the City of Montreal’s top-tier segment, where gains were posted over the same period, and healthy, brisk activity was reported by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts throughout the spring. Overall, in the first half of the year, the City of Montreal saw 1,086 residential real estate transactions (condominiums, attached and single family homes) over $1 million, an annual increase of 26%. Of those transactions, 22 properties sold in the luxury $4 million-plus segment, an increase of 22% over the same period in 2024. One ultra-luxury home sale over $10 million was reported on MLS in the first half of 2025, in contrast to an absence of sales in this price segment in the same period last year.
Single family homes continued to account for the greatest share of residential sales above $1 million in Montreal, at 42%. Between January 1 – June 30, $1 million-plus single family home sales increased 27% year-over-year to 451 homes sold. The majority of sales occurred between $1 million–$2 million, with these transactions comprising 76% of home sales over $1 million. Sales of luxury single family homes over $4 million increased 67% to 20 homes sold with one transaction reported in the first half of 2025 in the ultra-luxury $10 million-plus segment, up from no sales above this price during the same period last year.
Sales of luxury attached homes over $1 million rose 28% year-over-year in the first half of 2025 to 345 homes sold, the most significant growth rate of all luxury home types. There were no sales reported for luxury attached homes priced over $4 million in the first half of 2025, down from one sale during the same period last year.
Overall, luxury condominium sales over $1 million increased by 22% year-over-year to 290 properties sold in the first half of 2025. Of these, two condominiums sold over $4 million down from five sold in the first half of 2024. There were no sales in the ultra-luxury $10 million-plus segment reported on MLS® between January 1– June 30, on par with the same period last year. The entry-level luxury condominium segment between $1 million– $2 million, which accounted for 92% of all $1 million-plus condominium sales in the first half of 2025, posted year-over-year sales gains of 24%.
Overall, Montreal’s luxury housing market distinguished itself by outperforming national trends in the first half of 2025 and according to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts, conditions are anticipated to linger near sellers’ market territory in the coming months, with upward pressure on prices enduring.
For more information on Sotheby’s International Realty Canada and the Top-Tier Real Estate: 2025 Mid-Year State of Luxury Report contact:
Talk Shop Media
Victoria Levy
victoria@talkshopmedia.com
604-738-2220
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Disclaimer
The information contained in this report references market data from MLS® boards across Canada. Sotheby’s International Realty Canada cautions that MLS market data can be useful in establishing trends over time but does not indicate actual prices in widely divergent neighborhoods or account for price differentials within local markets. This report is published for general information only and not to be relied upon in any way. Although high standards have been used in the preparation of the information and analysis presented in this report, no responsibility or liability whatsoever can be accepted by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada or Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates for any loss or damage resulting from any use of, reliance on, or reference to the contents of this document.
