The GTA & Hamilton Distress Index
Every month RLT Co. reads every active MLS listing across five markets and counts the ones sellers are being forced to move — power of sale, estate, as-is, motivated. Most sites can't tell you this. We compute it from a daily scan.
| Market | Active | Distress % | Power of Sale | Estate | Median List |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamilton | 2669 | 16.3% | 18 | 4 | $729,000 |
| Mississauga | 2577 | 16.1% | 5 | 4 | $850,000 |
| Toronto | 4657 | 13.4% | 33 | 8 | $749,900 |
| Burlington | 831 | 12.5% | 5 | 1 | $899,900 |
| Oakville | 1004 | 10.5% | 4 | 1 | $1,375,000 |
Why this exists
Ontario power-of-sale volume is near a two-year high. A $200-billion wall of mortgages renews in 2026, most of it resetting to sharply higher payments, and the forced-seller pipeline is the widest it has been since 2009. But that supply is buried: on any given day about 86% of what's listed is ordinary retail inventory. The distressed few are where an investor's margin lives — and nobody publishes where they are, by city, every month. So we do.
These are derived statistics — counts and medians, not listings. For the actual underwritten deals behind the numbers, investors work with us directly.
Methodology: derived aggregate statistics from RLT Co.'s daily scan of active MLS listings priced $200,000–$5,000,000 across Hamilton, Toronto, Mississauga, Burlington and Oakville, as of 2026-09-01. "Distress signals" are keyword matches in public listing remarks. Aggregate market data for information only — not listing data, an appraisal, or investment advice. Source: Repliers MLS feed (TRREB / ITSO). Updated monthly by Danish Abbasi, eXp Realty.