How Long Does It Take to Sell a House in the GTA?

GTA homes that sold in July 2026 spent an average of 32 days on the market, or 45 days counting earlier listings of the same home, TRREB reported.

Homes that sold across the Greater Toronto Area in July 2026 had been listed for an average of 32 days. Counting earlier listings of the same property, the average was 45 days. Neither number includes the weeks before the sign goes up, or the stretch between a firm deal and the day you hand over the keys.

How long does it take to sell a house in the GTA?

An average of 32 days on the market for homes that sold in July 2026, or 45 days measured from when the property first came up for sale. Both figures are published by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board in its Market Watch report for July 2026, and both are longer than the same month a year earlier, when the two averages were 30 days and 40 days.

Those are averages across every municipality the board covers and every kind of home, from a detached house in Caledon to a condo apartment downtown. Your own sale will land on one side of them or the other, and the rest of this guide is about what decides which side.

Why are there two days on market numbers?

Because a home can be listed more than once, and only one of the two measures starts over when that happens.

The board defines both in the notes to the same report. Average Listing Days on Market, shortened to LDOM, "refers to the average number of days sold listings were on the market". Average Property Days on Market, or PDOM, "refers to the average number of days a property was on the market before selling, irrespective of whether the property was listed more than once by the same combination of seller and brokerage during the original listing contract period."

That second definition is the one worth reading twice. If a home comes off the market and goes back on with the same brokerage during the original listing contract, the LDOM clock restarts at zero and the PDOM clock keeps running. The 13 day gap between 32 and 45 in July 2026 is that difference, measured across the whole market.

The smaller number is the one usually quoted. The larger one is closer to what a seller actually lived through.

When does the days on market clock stop?

At the firm deal, not at the closing.

The board counts sales "based on firm transactions entered into the TRREB MLS System" during the month being reported. A deal goes firm once every condition in the agreement of purchase and sale has been satisfied or waived. Everything after that point sits outside the published figure: the lender's final paperwork, the lawyer's title searches, the move, and the closing date itself.

So a house that shows 32 days on the market can still be two or three months away from the day the sellers move out. Closing dates are negotiated inside the agreement rather than set by any rule, which is why two homes that sold on the same afternoon can change hands months apart.

What about the time before the listing goes live?

Not counted either, and it is often the longest part.

Nothing is measured until the listing is entered on the system. Photography, cleaning, repairs, decluttering, staging, and signing a representation agreement with your brokerage all happen before the clock starts. On a home that needs work, preparation can run longer than the marketing period that follows it. It is also the stretch a seller has the most control over, which makes it the wrong place to rush.

If your timing depends on buying somewhere else as well, we set out the trade offs in a separate guide on whether to buy first or sell first.

Does selling a condo take longer?

There is one extra step, and it comes with a legal deadline attached.

A buyer's lawyer will almost always want to review the status certificate before any condition is waived. According to the Condominium Authority of Ontario, a condo corporation must respond to a status certificate request "within 10 days of receiving the request and payment", and corporations "cannot legally charge you more than $100 to prepare the certificate, including taxes and materials". Section 76 of the Condominium Act, 1998 is the basis for the obligation.

Ten days is a cap on the corporation, not a promise of speed, and those ten days have to fit inside whatever condition period the buyer negotiated. Ordering the certificate as soon as an offer is signed, instead of waiting to see how the condition unfolds, is often the difference between a condition period that works and one that has to be extended.

Why might the average not describe my home?

Because the average is built from very different markets stacked together.

The same July 2026 report shows the pool those averages came from. There were 5,995 sales across the board's areas, down 0.9 per cent from July 2025. New listings totalled 14,484, down 17.8 per cent. Active listings at the end of the month came to 26,098, down 12.1 per cent. The average selling price was $1,003,956, down 4.5 per cent year over year.

Fewer new listings arriving against a nearly unchanged number of sales means each listing that month faced less competition from other sellers than a listing did a year earlier. That is a description of what was published for July, not a forecast about the months after it.

What actually moves an individual home away from the average is ordinary and local: the asking price measured against what comparable homes nearby have sold for, the condition of the home, the specific pocket it sits in rather than the municipality as a whole, and whether it is a type of home with many buyers looking or very few.

What should I ask my agent before listing?

Three questions, and they are all about the clock.

Ask for both days on market figures for homes like yours in your own municipality, not just the smaller of the two. Ask what happens if the home has not sold by a particular date, and whether the plan involves relisting, because you now know what relisting does to each measure. Ask what closing date the agreement will aim for, and check that it fits with wherever you need to be next.

To see what a sale actually leaves you with once the costs come off, put your own numbers through our net proceeds calculator. Our selling page walks through the steps in the order they happen.

Market figures in this guide are from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's Market Watch for July 2026 and describe that month only. Board figures are revised monthly. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.