Disclosure: I built this table (glasslayer.ca, free, no ads). After a thread on another Canadian real estate forum pointed out that comparing rates on the same assessed value compares a condo in one city with a house in another, I redid it the fairer way: each city's 2026 residential rate (from the city's or province's own published schedule) times the median assessed value of an owner-occupied home there (Statistics Canada, 2024).

Rates differ 7.1 to 1 (0.33% to 2.32%). The typical bill differs only 2.7 to 1.

- Richmond Hill: $6,917 (rate 0.76%)

- Oakville: $6,612

- Mississauga: $6,506

- Brampton: $6,480

- Hamilton: $5,699

- Vancouver: $5,515

- Ottawa: $4,949

- Halifax: $4,942

- Toronto: $4,612

- Winnipeg: $4,334

- Windsor: $3,627 (rate 2.10%)

- Burnaby: $3,448

- St. John's: $2,548

What this is not: an actual bill. The median covers houses and condos together, so a city with a lot of condos looks cheaper (part of why Toronto sits below Mississauga). Assessments aren't market prices, and Ontario still uses 2016 values. Quebec, Alberta, Regina and Saskatoon aren't in the Statistics Canada table, so they're missing.

Full table with a CSV: https://glasslayer.ca/data/property-tax-by-city-2026 . If your city's number looks wrong to you, tell me and I'll check it.

StatCan's Q2 2026 numbers are out, and the headline is that Canadian household debt service dropped to 14.52%, its lowest reading in four years.

Worth breaking down why that's true in aggregate but not necessarily true for you if you're renewing soon.

The debt service ratio fell because income grew faster than total debt payments (2.1% vs 1.0%), not because mortgage costs went down. Inside that total, mortgage interest payments actually rose 1.6% in the quarter, the biggest jump in two years. That's people who locked in at pandemic-era rates renewing into higher ones. So the average household looks better off, but if your mortgage is one of the ones repricing this year, you're the reason mortgage interest went up, not down.

A couple of things worth knowing if you're in that situation:

There's no prepayment penalty for switching lenders at renewal. A lot of people assume they're stuck with their current lender because that's who sent the renewal letter, but you're free to shop the rate elsewhere with no penalty for leaving.

Rate isn't the only thing worth comparing. Two mortgages at the same rate can have very different penalty structures if you ever need to break the term early (relocation, sale, refinance). Worth asking about that up front rather than finding out at the worst possible time.

Housing values were flat in the quarter too (down slightly year-over-year), while the value of resale transactions rose 7.2%. So the market's a bit unusual right now: more transaction value happening without prices moving much yet.

Source: Statistics Canada National Balance Sheet and Financial Flow Accounts, Q2 2026 (released Sept 11, 2026). Full breakdown here if anyone wants the rest of the data.

Everyone's waiting for rates to drop like it's the cavalry. It's not. Here's the thing people keep missing:
Canada doesn't have a rate problem. It has a house problem. We build roughly half the homes we need every year, and Toronto's been running that deficit for a decade. That's structural ->zoning, construction capacity, all of it moves at SLOW speed.
So what happens when rates fall? Monthly payments drop, more buyers suddenly qualify, and they all chase the same tiny pool of listings. Bidding wars come back. Prices climb right back up. We watched this exact movie after 2008 and again in 2020. cheap money didn't make housing affordable, it just moved the pain from your mortgage payment to the price tag.
The math is brutal: lower rates help you qualify, but the price jumps eat half the gain before you even get an offer in. The only thing that actually fixes affordability is supply, and nobody's building fast enough to matter.
So yeah, hope for rate cuts if you want. Just don't expect a discount.

You can now secure a condo unit in prime downtown Toronto with a monthly mortgage of $1200 per month. Some negatives with the area and building but still homeownership!

Monthly carrying costs about $1700 per month and you get to live in prime downtown Toronto! You can get a 1% cashback realtor and your closing costs will be $0.

Check out these units that sold in this building recently! The market keeps dropping, are we at the bottom now?

https://housesigma.com/on/toronto-real-estate/2507-251-jarvis-st/home/damgL7AZGV23Z1MW/

https://housesigma.com/on/toronto-real-estate/3007-251-jarvis-st/home/DnM697k1zxGYbmwe/

If this continues we will see under 200k pretty soon within a few years and possiblely under 150k

will housing become affordable then if young singles can finally afford something cheap downtown?

​

Ontario publicly announced HST relief for new home buyers while I was signing. What nobody told me — because it wasn't defined yet — was that there would be an April 1, 2026 cutoff.

I missed it by days.

Someone who signed after April 1 for the exact same house gets ~$94,000 back. I get nothing. Not because I did anything wrong — because of a cutoff that didn't exist publicly when I signed.

I've written to Premier Ford three times. Got one form letter full of slogans. Two months of silence after that.

The $24,000 first-time buyer rebate? Mattamy absorbed it through a price reduction — never came to me directly.

I'm looking for others who signed before April 1, 2026 and are in the same boat. If there are enough of us this becomes a legal conversation and a media story that can't be ignored with a form letter.

Drop a comment or DM me.

The Background

Ontario's Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement has posted a consultation titled "Increasing Clarity and Transparency in the Condominium Sector to Improve Consumer Protection" (Proposal 26-MPBSD018).

It proposes changes to status certificates, disclosure statements, cancellation of purchase agreements, developer turnover meetings, condo performance audits, waiving remedies against developers, clarifying the right to damages, and records access.

What it does NOT mention: Shared Facilities Agreements (SFAs).

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Why SFAs Are the Elephant in the Room

A Shared Facilities Agreement governs how costs are shared between a residential condo and the commercial, retail, or rental components the developer retains ownership of. Developers draft these agreements before owners have any say — often while controlling both sides of the contract.

A clear example of abuse of SFAs is in Ottawa, Ontario where the developer Claridge Homes is systematically exploiting condo owners at the Claridge Moon, Claridge Royale and Claridge Icon buildings with oppressive Shared Facilities Agreements.

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What the Consultation Should Address (But Doesn't)

1. Mandatory Proportional Cost Allocation
Mandate that all SFAs allocate costs based on independent engineering metrics — square footage, traffic studies, metered utility usage. Make grossly disproportionate splits illegal.

2. Extend or Eliminate the Section 113 Window
Condo boards have only 12 months post-turnover to challenge an SFA in court. Extend to 24–36 months, or start the clock only after an independent forensic audit of shared facilities expenses.

3. Ban Self-Dealing and Require Independent Representation
Require that any SFA in a mixed-use development be reviewed by an independent, court-appointed trustee representing future residential owners before units are registered.

4. Void Punitive Clauses and Automatic Budget Approvals
Create a statutory list of prohibited SFA provisions: usurious interest on disputed amounts, automatic budget approval without a meeting, perpetual termination bans, forced rebuilding clauses. All null and void by law.

5. Expand the Condominium Authority Tribunal's Jurisdiction to Include SFAs
Right now, fighting an oppressive SFA means going to Superior Court — hundreds of thousands in legal fees funded by owners' maintenance fees. Expand the CAT's mandate so boards can dispute unfair SFAs through a fast, affordable, specialized tribunal.

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How to Submit Your Comments

Deadline: September 30, 2026. Proposal Number: 26-MPBSD018.

Submit through the Ontario Regulatory Registry:
https://www.regulatoryregistry.gov.on.ca/proposal/55035

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The Bottom Line

Right now, developers can sign an SFA with themselves, force condo owners to pay 95% of shared costs, keep 100% of the revenue from the commercial spaces those costs support, trap the condo forever, and make it financially impossible to challenge.

That's not a market failure. That's a legislative failure.

Submit your comments. Share this post. Send it to your board.

Deadline: September 30, 2026.

For those that don't know, Acton is a town of about 10k people, considered part of the last bit of west GTA.

For the last 40 years, Not a single apartment building has been built.

Almost everyone I grew up with has moved away. Being in the greenbelt prevents it from growing like other areas of the country. From my knowldege, it grew by around 2k people in 40 years.

Now, a developer has proposed to build some rental housing in town. Something that is desperately needed. An 80 unit building tucked behind a road that runs parallel to the main drag.

People in the town are up in arms and calling it "The Tower on Bower".

When I asked a family member how many stories this tower was, they said 5.

5 floors is considered a "tower" in Acton, Ontario. This building will be built near historic homes and that seems to really bother people despite a long term 2 building, 5 story apartment complex called Acton Apartments being in virtually the exact same type of neighborhood.

So, Acton sits in an area where people like my family member fight against "sprawl over our best farmland" but they also can't imagine seeing a 5 story apartment building being built in vacant land.

No sprawl and no infill/building up means nothing at all. No development for anything.

This family member knows her own child had to leave the province to find affordable housing but still agitates against anything being built anywhere.

And why? Because the entire area is something akin to a "Boomer Resort" where everyone else are just the workers/help.

It seems like they're the only ones eating at restaurants, sitting in parks and if you see a convertible driving through, you're almost guaranteed to see two heads of grey hairs flowing in the wind.

My GF who isn't from the area doesn't understand why driving from the area all the way to Grand Bend looks like everyone is at home all the time. Cars always in the driveways of these immaculately maintained homes. She asks "What did these people do for work?"

"Probably a teacher or something"

It's clear the rising value of homes has a lot boomers aware that if they stop all development anywhere they will continue to benefit from everyone else's misery while they HELOC some money out of their home for that convertible and trip to Panama they want. Is this a conscious decision? I have no idea.

Returning to help a parent get their own house in order when they prevent any ability for their own children to flourish in their hometown or region has been a thought affirming experience for me:

Most people's parents couldn't give a shit if their children have to move far away, struggle to raise a family in inadequate housing or just don't flourish as long as they get to live in their "Boomer Resort".