Editors' note

Seven new Ontario rent rules arrive in September, and Mississauga has already published a September 1 start date for its new renovation and repair rules. The people that lands on are not, mostly, professional landlords: the Globe and Mail spent this week on the condo owners who became landlords by accident and kept the unit because selling looked worse. Rates did not move, inflation did, and neither of those changes what you owe the City. If you had to handle the September rule changes yourself, would you know where to start? —The Editors

The Week in Toronto Real Estate

Prices moved, the Bank did not, buyers kept lowballing

Inflation reached 3% in July, breaching the Bank of Canada's target range, CTV News reported. The Bank did not blink. Its policy rate sits at 2.25% on every date in this week's data, May 21 through August 18, and the five-year conventional mortgage rate has held at 6.09% every week since May 27. Financial Post found economists in no rush to see a hike, even at 3%.

On the sale side, CREA says July home sales were down 5.3% from last year while the market becomes more balanced, per the Toronto Star. Financial Post added a number worth keeping: nearly eight in ten Toronto homes are selling below asking, which the paper argues is closer to normal than to collapse. mpamag.com noted that some GTA homes still sold in under two weeks last month, so the softness is not evenly spread.

The Numbers

BoC policy rate	2.25%	unchanged May 21 through August 18
5-year conventional mortgage rate	6.09%	flat every week since May 27
Canadian inflation, July	3%	above the Bank of Canada's target range
July home sales, year over year	-5.3%	CREA calls the market more balanced
Toronto homes selling below asking	nearly 8 in 10	closer to normal than to collapse, the paper argues

Sources: Bank of Canada · CTV News · Financial Post · Toronto Star. Figures as reported that week; always check the primary source.

The Big Story

September 1 brings new rules, and a job you never applied for

Mark September 1. The City of Mississauga has told landlords and tenants that new renovation and repair rules start that day, and INsauga reports a companion bylaw meant to stop unlawful renovictions. INC News counts seven new Ontario rent rules arriving in September 2026. We are not going to pretend we know every clause of all seven, because this week's reporting does not spell them out, but the date is real and it is eleven days away. The renoviction bylaw did not appear from nowhere either. It exists because renovictions happened.

Here is who that lands on. The Globe and Mail ran a piece this week on how young condo owners became accidental landlords: people who bought a unit to live in, moved on for a job or a partner or a bigger place, and kept it because selling into this market looked worse than renting it out. Nobody in that group applied for a compliance job. They got one anyway.

Rules with dates on them have teeth. UL Lawyers reported this week that a landlord was sentenced over fatal fire code violations in Brampton, the far end of what non-compliance can mean, and worth saying plainly rather than softening. Almost no owner will ever be near that. The ordinary version is duller and far more common: a repair handled the wrong way, or a renovation started without the paperwork the new rules will ask for.

Which brings up the question owners keep asking before they hire anyone. What does a management fee actually buy on one condo? A large part of the honest answer is this. Somebody whose job is to know that September 1 exists, to read the seven rules, and to file the notice correctly the first time. That is worth real money to an owner who will not read them, and worth nothing at all to an owner who will.

Our take: Read the September rules yourself before you decide to pay anyone to read them for you. If you get through them and the work looks like something you would do properly every time, self-manage and keep the fee. If you know you will skim them in October, after a tenant asks a question you cannot answer, that gap is what a management fee is actually for.

Quick Hits

The Ford government is being urged to protect renters from air conditioning price-gouging, CollingwoodToday reports. If cooling is a separate line on your lease, it is now a political line too.
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Canadians are searching for rentals away from big cities, per Financial Post. Your competition for a tenant is no longer just the unit three floors up.
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Zonda data show the unsold condo glut is worse outside downtown Toronto than in it, Business Examiner reports. For once, the core is the boring, useful place to be.
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Nearly half of a proposed Toronto rental tower would be two and three bedroom units, if the city approves it, the Toronto Star reports. Family sized supply is rare enough that a plan for it makes the news.
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The GTA condo chill has reached cottage country, National Post reports. If your second property is up north, the softness followed you there.
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From Certus Insights

Do You Need a Property Manager in Toronto? How to Decide

We walked through when hiring a manager pays for itself on a single condo and when self-managing genuinely wins. Read it

Tell us: If you had to handle the September rule changes yourself, would you know where to start? Reply by email; we read everything.