Looking to 2026, Engel & Völkers expects luxury housing to remain selective and segmented
Canada’s high end housing market in 2025 looked less like a single national story and more like a set of diverging local narratives, with Ottawa, Montréal and Halifax pulling ahead while Toronto and Vancouver cooled in volume but not in price.
Engel & Völkers’ 2025 Year-End Canadian Luxury Real Estate Market Report showed that sales in the $1–1.99 million band fell 15% in Toronto and 9% in Vancouver, even as average prices in those brackets held roughly flat and new listings dropped sharply in Toronto but rose in Vancouver.
Halifax, Montréal and Ottawa, by contrast, saw double digit sales growth in value oriented luxury ranges, with modest price gains and still tight inventory.
“2025 marked a shift from momentum-driven buying to more deliberate decision-making,” said Stuart Siegel, president & CEO, Engel & Völkers Americas.
“Buyers were highly selective, but they remained willing to pay for quality, location and long-term livability. That discipline is what kept prices stable, even as activity diverged by market.”
He added that “despite uneven sales activity across the broader market, Engel & Völkers reports growth at several of its flagship Canadian affiliated brokerages in 2025 that outpaces the local markets.”
In Halifax, the brokerage reported a 23% increase in $1–1.99 million residential detached sales in 2025, with average prices up 3% year over year.
Montréal saw a 32% rise in detached sales priced $1–3.99 million, with average prices holding at $1.49 million despite a 21% increase in listings.
Ottawa’s $1–1.99 million detached segment posted a 33% increase in units sold and a 2% gain in average prices, while Toronto and Vancouver showed softer volumes but largely steady pricing in the same bands.
Housing Supply Report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) revealed that in the first half of 2025, Calgary, Edmonton, Montréal, Ottawa and Halifax recorded housing starts “at or near record levels” while Toronto and Vancouver stalled nationwide construction momentum.
Rate relief in the second half of 2025 also helped, with mortgage specialists reporting that Bank of Canada cuts in September and October sparked renewed buyer inquiries and nudged some sidelined borrowers back into higher priced markets.
Luxury sales in early 2025 already pointed to this two speed pattern, with markets such as Montréal and Ottawa leading year over year gains while Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area saw notable drops.
Looking to 2026, the brokerage expects luxury housing to remain selective and segmented, with regional fundamentals and realistic pricing doing more work than broad national tailwinds.
Markets that combined relative value, strong employment and lifestyle appeal are expected to outperform, while sellers in slower metros would have to price “ahead of the market rather than behind it” to capture constrained but still motivated demand.
Make sure to get all the latest news to your inbox on Canada’s mortgage and housing markets by signing up for our free daily newsletter here.
