On CMHC's 2025 survey, Greater Toronto's condo rentals had 1.0% vacancy; Urbanation's Q2 2026 figure for newer GTHA purpose-built buildings was 6.8%, and 64% of those projects offer incentives worth about 13% of face rent. A Toronto property manager's site should show, from its own records, how it fills a condo against them.
At 64% of the purpose-built rental projects completed since 2000 across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), the landlord is offering an incentive, most often one or two months free (Urbanation, Q2 2026). A condo owner renting a unit in Toronto is pricing against those buildings. For property management marketing in Toronto, that sets the message: the case to an owner is how their unit gets filled when a newer building nearby is giving rent away.
Where is the vacancy rate highest in Greater Toronto’s rental market?
In newer purpose-built buildings. Condo rentals are the tightest part of the market on CMHC’s measure: its 2025 survey put Greater Toronto’s condo-apartment rental vacancy at 1.0% and purpose-built vacancy at 3.0%, up from 2.5% a year earlier, against a preliminary balanced range of 2.5% to 4.0% for Toronto.
Urbanation measures newer stock across the GTHA, a wider area and a different survey, so its figures don’t line up exactly with CMHC’s. For purpose-built buildings completed since 2000 and at least a year old, its vacancy was 6.8% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 7.9% in the first quarter but up from 5.5% a year earlier. Including buildings still in lease-up, it was 12.4%, down from 14.7% a year earlier. Urbanation also redefined the stock between releases, so read the series as a direction rather than a precise trend.
How many newer GTHA rental buildings are offering free rent?
Most of them. Urbanation counted incentives at 64% of GTHA purpose-built projects completed since 2000 in the second quarter of 2026, down from 66% in the first, most commonly one or two months free. After incentives, net rent ran 13% below face rent, about $377 a month. CMHC’s 2025 survey found 75% of GTA structures completed since 2022 offered at least one incentive.
None of that measures what individual condo owners offer. It measures the newer buildings, which a prospective tenant can compare against an owner’s listing.
Is the Greater Toronto rental market getting looser or tighter?
The sources point both ways, and a page that picks one is ahead of the data. CMHC’s June 2026 mid-year update expects conditions to keep easing, while the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) says they “could gradually tighten if this trend continues”. Both are outlooks.
The measured part is the pipeline. In the second quarter of 2026, the GTHA had 31,645 purpose-built rental units under construction, the most in decades, while completions in the first half fell 21% on the year to 2,664. Developers held a record 5,001 completed, unsold condos. Condo completions are falling too, with 21,850 scheduled for 2026 against 29,616 in 2025 (Urbanation, Q1 2026). CMHC’s Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report expects slowing condo completions to cut secondary rental supply and put renewed pressure on rents and vacancy. That’s an outlook from the same agency whose June update expects easing.
What does a vacant month cost a City of Toronto condo owner?
A month’s rent. TRREB’s condo-apartment leases in the City of Toronto came to $2,316 for a one-bedroom and $3,154 for a two-bedroom in the second quarter of 2026 (TRREB Rental Market Report, Q2 2026), which is what each empty month gives up. A vacancy of six months or more in the City adds the Vacant Home Tax, covered below.
That’s the price side of a manager’s work. A firm that fills condos quickly is selling the months an owner doesn’t lose, and it can state that in the owner’s own currency.
What should property management marketing in Toronto tell a condo owner?
How the firm fills a condo against newer buildings, and the dated market figures behind that claim. The page has two jobs: show the firm’s own record, and give the owner figures they can check.
A Toronto property manager’s own condo fill record
State it from your records: average days to lease on condos last quarter, how often you recommended an incentive and what it was, and how you price a unit at turnover. Those are numbers only you have, and an owner can’t find them on a listing site. If you rarely need an incentive on a well-priced condo, say so, with the count behind it. Judge the page by the owner enquiries it brings in.
Dated Greater Toronto rent and vacancy figures on the owner page
Put the figures an owner can check on the page, each with its source and quarter: the regional lease figure for the owner’s area, the incentive share at newer buildings, and the condo and purpose-built vacancy rates. Refresh them when the next quarter’s reports land, and change the date in the same edit. I’ve written separately about the same question in Metro Vancouver; that market’s figures belong to that market.
Should a Toronto condo owner offer a free month to rent their unit?
Only if the unit needs one, and a manager can tell from what it leased for and how long it took last time. The market figures here measure the newer buildings’ incentives, about 13% of face rent at 64% of newer GTHA purpose-built projects. They don’t measure what individual condo owners offer, so there’s no measured owner rate to match.
Does Toronto’s Vacant Home Tax apply to a rented condo?
Not if a tenant occupies it long enough. A unit occupied by a tenant under a written agreement of at least 30 days, for a total of at least six months in the taxation year, counts as occupied for the tax. A residential property vacant six months or more in the taxation year is taxed at 3% of its Current Value Assessment, the rate in force since the 2024 taxation year, subject to exemptions such as one for repairs and renovations that prevent occupation for at least six months, with further conditions. The City of Toronto’s Vacant Home Tax page, last modified July 22, 2026, sets out the conditions.
The figures above come from CMHC’s 2025 rental survey, its June 2026 update and Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report, Urbanation’s GTHA reports for Q1 and Q2 2026, TRREB’s Q2 2026 rental report and the City of Toronto’s Vacant Home Tax page, read September 29 to October 1, 2026. The Owner Search Audit reads the searches a Greater Toronto owner runs when choosing a manager and shows where your firm’s owner pages stand in them, and what the gap is worth in doors. The audit is the next step.