We want to thank all our members who have stepped up and have joined our grass roots campaign that began in December 2025 to increase awareness for our provincial MPPs and federal MPs on the need to reduce the crippling levels of taxation on new homes in the province. The data used in that campaign came from modelling work done in the summer and fall of 2025 using the best available data at that time, and told a compelling story of what would happen to housing affordability if the province failed to act now. 

To improve our chances of delivering the desired outcome on this file, we doubled down on the strength of the evidence to support our case even further. In December, OHBA, in collaboration with BILD through our integrated policy and research resources, commissioned Altus Group to do an even deeper dive into the state of Ontario’s home construction industry and housing affordability for all of 2025. And from this analysis, we asked the study’s author, Peter Norman, the Chief Economist at Altus Group, to project the current industry trends through to 2030 to better define the state of housing affordability over the next five years. The results showed an even more distressed state of the market, a further erosion of government revenues, and no improvements in housing supply or overall affordability. 

Summary of the findings 

• Ontario continues to have the worst housing market in Canada, with steep declines in new home sales over the last five years, and significantly lower housing starts and completions. This confirms that the cause is a systemic breakdown in housing supply due to compounding poor policy decisions of the past, and not a cyclical slowdown. 
   

• In 2025, the Ontario government saw $2.4 billion less in PST on new home sales due to the total number of new home sales during the year drop to just 14,000, far below the five-year average of 50,000 sales annually. 
   

• Combined with the drop in Land Transfer Tax (LTT) revenues, and lower income tax revenues due to job losses, the Ontario government saw their revenues from the home construction industry drop by $4.4 billion in 2025, and similar losses are projected for the next several years. 
   

• In June of 2025, OHBA, using the earlier Altus Group research, highlighted that 40,000 industry jobs were at risk over the next 2-3 years. CHBA’s recent Housing Market Index (HMI) report confirmed that almost 20,000 jobs were lost in 2025. 
   

• If the current industry contractions continue, over the next five years the new home construction and renovation industry could see 100,000 jobs lost (50,000 direct, and 50,000 indirect sector jobs). 

Armed this new data, representatives of OHBA and BILD, along with MMAH Minister Rob Flack, presented the results of this latest analysis report to Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy to further substantiate OHBA’s call for the Ontario government to remove the GST from all new home sales and substantial renovations in the province. Our evidence was sound. Our message was clear. 

Since that time, OHBA, along with BILD and our other local HBAs, have continued to lobby government decision makers on the need to take immediate action to reverse the current downward trend in housing affordability and supply.  

OHBA will continue to assert our position with government that the only way forward to restoring new home affordability for Ontario families is to remove the PST, and to encourage the federal government to follow Ontario’s lead and remove the federal GST from the price of a new home. Combined, on an average $1 million home in Ontario, the combined PST/GST removal would reduce the cost of the home by an average of almost $100,000. This is the only way to bring immediate relief to Ontario’s crippled new home housing market. 

We will continue to update you on our progress on this file. And we encourage you to keep meeting with MPPs and MPs so they understand the urgent need for immediate government action to reduce the cost of new homes and restore much needed housing supply in Ontario. 

OHBA invites you to review the report summary and key messages below to appreciate why our current efforts are so important to our industry, and to Ontario families. 

Thank you again for your continued support on this critical policy initiative. 

Key Documents For OHBA Members
One-page summary of the December 2025 Altus Group Report
Member Key Messages Calling On Government Action Now
 
For further information, please contact:
Scott Andison
Chief Executive Officer
sandison@ohba.ca / 416-525-8071