Canada EXPLODES After 100 000 LAYOFFS Are Coming Due To HOUSING MARKET CRASH

Only 269 new homes were sold in the GTA last month, making it the worst January in the home building industry since 1981. Construction comes to an end, the industry will be slowing down, and we're looking at the potential for about 100,000 layoffs across the province. We've had over 100,000 job losses in the last nine months in Canada. Canada is exploding as 100,000 layoffs loom because the housing market is crashing in plain sight. The slowdown story coming out of Ottawa doesn't match the data. Sales have fallen to levels not seen in decades, projects are being cancelled, and construction pipelines are drying up. Month after month, the numbers break new records, and the federal government keeps treating it like background noise while the economic damage spreads. The latest real estate numbers are out for Toronto and the GTA, and there was a decline in December compared to the same period a year earlier. Let's start with the basics. December 2025. New home sales across the GTA came in at 240 units. 240. That is 82% below the 10-year average. 82! How does a market lose four-fifths of its buyers and still get called cyclical? Who exactly thinks that's normal? The sales slump leading to deferred or cancelled projects. Come 27, 28, we're going to start to see a shortage of product out there. Then January hit. Only 269 new homes sold. The worst January since 1981. That is 36% lower than the year before and 80% below the decade average. We'll have to go back more than 40 years to find numbers this bad. Back when interest rates were in the double digits and MTV had just launched. But, you know, this is just a temporary adjustment, right? With 269 homes sold last month, that's 36% less than the year before and a whopping 80% drop from the 10-year January average. The lowest January on record. The head of Chestnut Hill Developments has six projects in the works with Digging for the Wild slated to begin later this summer. We came to market early last year. We were about 50% sold. February didn't save anyone either. Only 359 new homes sold. Down 48% year over year and 82% below the 10-year average. That makes eight straight months of historic lows. At what point does Ottawa stop blaming weather and start admitting that the housing engine has stalled? And it gets worse in condos. Q3 2025 condo sales in the GTA totaled 316 units. That's a 35-year low. Sales are sitting 92% below the 10-year average. When 9 out of 10 buyers vanish, you're not in a slowdown. You are watching an industry fall apart in real time. And it's following on the worst year on record, which was 2025. Only 85 condos sold last month, which is a 50% drop compared to last year and down 89% from a 10-year average. For the full year of 2025, total new condo sales came in at 1,599 units. Down 60% from 2024 and 91% below the normal average. That is not a market taking a breath. That is oxygen getting cut off. Developers cannot build without pre-sales. Banks will not finance projects without demand. So projects freeze. Cranes stop moving. Workers get pink slips. Across the GTA, home sales have dipped and so too have prices. Not surprising, says real estate agent Gus Papayanu, who also points to an oversaturated condo market. But here's the part that really exposes the fantasy coming out of Ottawa. Inventories everywhere. The GTA is sitting on seven months of condo supply. That is the highest level in 20 years. There are about 15,000 condos and nearly 6,000 single-family homes sitting unsold. That is over 21,000 units waiting for buyers who are not showing up. I think the biggest cause right now is a lack of confidence on the buyer's side. Meanwhile, 184 single-family homes sold, which is a 26% drop compared to the year before and 68% lower than the 10-year average. Metro Vancouver has 2,500 brand new condos sitting empty. Double last year. Brand new towers with fresh paint. No one moving in. These are not distressed crack dens. They are brand new buildings and people still won't touch them. Why would they? Confidence is gone. Market's been pretty flat. Just listings are a lot higher. There's a lot of choice for buyers right now. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reports more than 3,300 homes were sold in December, down 1.8% from the same time a year ago. Resale condo prices are down 13% to 14% from the 2022 peak. New home prices have moderated about 20% from the top. Developers are saying that they have hit the build cost floor. They can't go lower because construction inflation, development costs, land costs and taxes eat everything. So buyers get discounts and still walk away. So the construction that you see occurring today is a result of past sales activity occurring about two, three, four years ago. Once that construction comes to an end, the industry will be slowing down. Let me ask you something simple. If prices were down 20% and interest rates were lower, why are buyers still on the sidelines? The Bank of Canada has cut rates to 2.25%. That is near the lowest level since 2023. Rate relief was supposed to reignite demand. Instead, sales are stuck at historic lows. So what is really happening? People do not trust the future. They don't trust job security stability. They don't trust policy direction. They see headlines about tariffs, inflation, layoffs and mortgage resets coming in 2026. Nearly one-third of Canadian mortgages are about to reset at higher payments next year. That doesn't inspire confidence. If you don't have anything in the pipeline that comes after that, you're looking at very tight supply conditions that will, in the end, drive up cost. And Ottawa keeps acting shocked, as if they didn't spend years piling on taxes, fees and regulatory costs. Development charges in Ontario are the highest in North America. Government fees make up a huge chunk of the cost of a new home. Then politicians step in front of the cameras and ask, why is housing expensive? How does that make sense? Builders are openly warning that housing starts are already declining. Sales lead starts. When sales collapse, construction slows two to three years later. That means today's collapse sets up an even worse supply crunch by 2027 or 2028. So we get the worst of both worlds. No sales now, no supply later. At present, there is a lot of inventory out there, close to 15,000 condos and nearly 6,000 single-family dwellings. The small units, 300 square feet, 400 square feet, which are two-car garage units, which are not habitable. And that's where the bulk of the product that we have in our city right now are on the market and can't sell, because people can't live in them. This project here is open, it's totally sold out. And through all of this, federal leadership talks about long-term visions and global strategy. Regular Canadians are watching their biggest asset lose value. They are watching projects get canceled. They are watching neighbors list homes and slash prices. This is not theory. This is real money disappearing. The housing market is the backbone of the Canadian economy. It drives construction, materials, retail, appliances, services, and local businesses. When housing freezes, everything connected to it starts to crack. And we are already seeing that crack spread. We've had over 100,000 job losses in the last nine months in Canada. Now, let's talk about the part nobody in Ottawa wants to say out loud, jobs, because this housing crash is not just about prices on a screen. It is about paychecks disappearing. The construction sector in Ontario employs about 225,000 people directly and indirectly. Industry leaders are warning that 100,000 of those jobs are at risk if sales don't return to historic levels. That's nearly half of the workforce. And this is not some fringe blog prediction. It is coming from the Building Industry and Land Development Association. Well, a new report shows that new home sales in GTA were stuck at lows that we haven't seen in decades. Only 359 properties changed hands in July. This is according to the Building Industry and Land Development Association. That's down 48% from the same month last year and 82%. Think about that number. 100,000 electricians, plumbers, framers, crane operators, site supervisors, inspectors, truck drivers, entire families tied to those incomes. When projects get delayed or canceled, those jobs don't quietly shrink, they vanish. And layoffs are already happening. Developers are confirming cuts across projects because financing is drying up. If you cannot hit pre-sale targets, banks won't release funds. No funds means no groundbreaking. No groundbreaking means no crews. It's literally that simple. These neighborhoods that have highly rated schools, transit, walkability, will always be sought after. To the east, he says, there are more affordable options. Even if you're willing to go to the edge of Scarborough or into Scarborough, you can find homes in that $1 million mark, whether it's a semi-detached or possibly even a detached bungalow that needs a lot of work. The wider labor market is already flashing warning signs. Q4 2025 recorded 259,000 job cuts. That was the worst quarter since 2008, worse than the COVID lockdown period. The government sector alone cut 308,000 jobs in 2025. The tech sector cut 154,000. Part-time jobs nationally dropped by almost 1 million. That is not background noise. That is deterioration. There are 1.8 million Canadians who have been actively looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. These are not people on vacation. These are people trying every single day to find something stable. Now imagine adding 100,000 construction workers to that pile. And then comes the economic shockwave. Industry estimates say Ontario could lose $20 billion in economic activity if the housing slowdown continues. That is not just builders. That is suppliers, hardware stores, appliance retailers, restaurants near job sites, trunking companies, moving materials. December is typically a slow month, but experts say right now, buyers have more power to negotiate. Bidding wars, they've come and gone with the exception of a couple neighborhoods and a couple home types such as detached. You can take your time. You can do due diligence. You can even go visit the home. Housing touches everything. When 240 homes sell in a month instead of a few thousand, that ripple moves outward. Each kitchen cabinet not installed. Every furnace not ordered. Every landscaping contract that never happens. Communities feel that loss immediately. Then there is a mortgage time bomb. Nearly one-third of Canadian mortgages will reset in 2026 at higher payments. Families who locked in low rates during the boom will face monthly increases. Some will manage, some will not. Power sales are already up 90% in recent months. So Bill, it's really symptomatic that people are still sitting on the sidelines as it applies to the purchasing of new homes. This is a trend that's been going on for about eight months now where we've seen historic lows across the GTA. One example east of Toronto says everything. A home bought in September 2024 for $2.3 million sold recently for $1.2 million. That is a $1.1 million loss in about a year. That is not a paper loss. That is equity erased. How many households could survive that kind of hit? And just when you think it can't get worse, look at the pipeline. Over the next 18 months, about 26,000 condo units are scheduled to complete in the GTA. At the same time, absorption rates remain weak. Developers need strong pre-sales to finance new projects. And they are not getting them. They're not habitable. And that's where the bulk of the product that we have in our city right now are on the market and can't sell because people can't live in them. This project here is open. It's totally sold out. But Ralph Del Duca says if you build livable homes, there will be buyers with Build predicting a supply drop that will drive up price starting in late 2027. Housing starts are already declining. Builders are openly saying that two to three years from now, supply will fall off a cliff. Urban Nation Research projects that by 2029, there could be virtually no new condos ready for sale in the GTA pipeline. Not a slowdown, not a dip, close to zero. So what does that mean? It means today's crash turns into tomorrow's shortage. Workers leave the industry. Apprentices do not get trained. Skills disappear. When demand eventually returns, there may not be enough crews left to build anything quickly. And it's resulting in the levels of sales that that this report has indicated. Three hundred and fifty nine new homes. That's 83 percent of the 10 year average. And so these are new homes. Like we have shots right now from Chopper 24 showing like established communities that have been there for decades. Are we talking new builds that have never been lived in before? Yeah, we're talking new builds, new condominiums, new communities, pre-construction sales. And Ottawa's response so far has been small tweaks. Some talk about reducing development charges, some HST relief for first time buyers under one million dollars. But the structural problem remains. Confidence is shattered. Policy uncertainty is high. Builders cannot make the math work. You cannot tax, regulate and inflate costs for years and then act surprised when the engine stalls. Government fees, land costs, construction inflation. They all stack up. Prices hit a build cost floor. Buyers stepped back. Sales collapsed. Starts are falling. Layoffs loom. This is not an abstract economic cycle. It is real people on Zoom calls being told that their position is eliminated effective immediately. It is young professionals who finally landed jobs now asking how to apply for unemployment. It is families wondering how to pay mortgages that are about to reset higher. So why do we think that is? Is it because people either sit on the sidelines or they just simply don't want that kind of house? No, it really is a factor of they're sitting in the sidelines. Interest rates are still, albeit they've come down from their peak, but they're higher than they have been in the previous decade. Canada's housing market was the growth story for over a decade. It drove GDP. It fueled consumer spending. It supported hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now that engine is sputtering. And instead of facing the scale of the problem, leadership keeps describing it as mixed conditions or different recovery cycles. There is nothing mixed, about 82% drops. There is nothing cyclical, about 92% collapses in condo sales. And there is nothing temporary, about 100,000 potential layoffs.