2025 was a year rife with question marks for the housing industry, but 2026 will be a year of answers, according to two principals from Markham, Ont., homebuilder and developer Geranium.

A year marked by a trade war with the U.S., interest rate reductions, and federal government initiatives to accelerate new housing construction and to assist first-time homebuyers, the events of 2025 injected a great deal of uncertainty into the housing sector, Boaz Feiner and Luke Giampietri said in an interview with RENX Homes.

But the two anticipate there will be a much-wanted dose of certainty in 2026 that will be of great relief to Geranium, its peers, homebuyers and sellers.

“Once we get rid of those open-ended variables and there is certainty across the board, I believe this pent-up demand is going to happen,” Feiner said.

Founded 1977 as a homebuilder, Geranium expanded into full-scale development around the year 2000. It builds and develops a mix of housing such as townhomes, single-family homes and estate homes in the Greater Toronto Area and its surroundings. Its most notable projects include the large resort community Friday Harbour in Innisfil, a community about 50 kms north of Toronto.

More confidence in 2026

The Geranium principals said the housing industry is in a wait-and-see period, holding out to determine where several industry-changing factors will land in 2026, including: 

• the proposed GST/HST relief on new homes for first-time homebuyers;
• whether interest rates will continue to fall; and
• a clearer understanding of how the economy will develop with tariffs and trade.

Once there is a firmer idea of how those factors pan out, the industry and prospective buyers and sellers can prepare and act, Giampietri said.

“The biggest element today that we are dealing with really is that confidence in the marketplace to get potential purchases off the sideline,” Feiner said. “What that really requires is trust in our system.”

If there is renewed confidence in the housing market, Giampietri expects it will first emerge in the resale market. Feiner said he is already seeing upward movement on resales. The hope is that over the next few months, resale activity will remain “solid” and trending in a positive direction, which will correlate to an improvement in new home sales in 2026.

Feiner is uncertain where home prices will trend in 2026, particularly because of the tariffs and their impact on Canada's economy. Every industry “just want(s) to know what it is,” Feiner said about tariffs, “so we can deal with it.”

The slightly optimistic forecast for Canada’s housing market in 2026 matches expectations from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and REMAX Canada.

CREA expects national sales activity to rise by 7.7 per cent from 2025 to 2026. Like Giampietri, CREA said a recovery of the housing market would first be seen in the resale market.

In a survey released last week, REMAX saw a slight increase in the number of Canadians intending to buy a home during the next 12 months compared to the fall. REMAX expects home sales will increase by 3.4 per cent year-over-year.

A year of action

At a moment roiled by uncertainty and slow home sales, Geranium leans on its track record and longevity, Feiner said. To demonstrate its quality, Geranium is hosting hard-hat tours of its projects at the stud stage, giving potential buyers “confidence in our ability to produce,” Feiner said.

Geranium is taking steps to lower the cost of its projects without wavering in its quality standards, Giampietri said. For example, the company is constantly updating its construction methodologies to prioritize efficiency, Feiner said, translating into improved quality without higher prices.

While 2025 may have been a year of uncertainty, 2026 will also be a year of action in the housing sector, Feiner said, fuelled by declining interest rates.

He believes a blend of housing types, from multi-unit to single-family homes, will be in high demand in 2026 as variety stimulates movement on new and resale home activity.

For instance, Geranium plans to launch Phase 2 of its Midhurst Valley community in 2026, which will have products geared for first-time buyers with small semi-detached and single-family homes. Midhurst is a community just outside Barrie, also also north of Toronto.

Going into next year, Geranium is also developing its Allegro project in Aurora, planned to consist of four- and five-bedroom homes, and a bungalow community named Courts of King’s Bay in Kawartha.