Brampton Leads Canada in Mortgage Delinquencies: What Ontario Homeowners Need to Know

Canada's housing market has faced mounting stress since interest rates began rising in 2022, but one city has emerged as the clearest signal of where the pressure has landed hardest. In a May 1, 2026 report for The Globe and Mail, real estate reporter Rachelle Younglai found that Brampton, located just west of Toronto in the Greater Toronto Area, now holds the highest mortgage delinquency rate among Canada's larger cities, according to data from Equifax Canada. In the final quarter of 2025, the delinquency rate on total mortgages in Brampton reached 0.6 per cent, compared with 0.26 per cent nationally. To put that shift in perspective, Brampton's delinquency rate in 2019 was just 0.06 per cent, well below the national average of 0.18 per cent at the time.

The surge reflects a collision of pressures that have struck Brampton with particular force. Younglai spoke with Rakhi Madan, a mortgage broker with more than 15 years of experience in the city, who described the situation as multiple pressure points landing on the same market at once, pointing to higher borrowing costs, a steep correction in home values, and mounting job losses as the primary drivers.

For homeowners across Ontario, the Brampton story is more than a local concern. Younglai's reporting draws on Equifax Canada data identifying Brampton, Toronto, Markham, Oshawa, and Vancouver as the five cities most responsible for driving Canada's overall surge in mortgage delinquencies. Understanding the forces at play in Brampton can help homeowners across the province recognize the risks in their own situations, particularly as a significant mortgage renewal wave approaches.

The Numbers Behind Brampton's Delinquency Surge

The pace of Brampton's rise is as significant as its current level. In 2019, Brampton's delinquency rate of 0.06 per cent was actually below the national average of 0.18 per cent, meaning the city was among the more financially stable mortgage markets in the country. Today, it sits at more than twice the national rate and is rising faster than anywhere else in Canada.

Canada's banking regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), has formally raised concerns about rising home loan defaults, identifying delinquencies and upcoming mortgage renewals as material risks to the country's financial system. Data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) shows that delinquency rates more than doubled in many Ontario cities between 2022 and the end of 2025, including Ottawa, Kingston, Peterborough, Oshawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, St. Catharines, London, Windsor, and Barrie. The trend is province-wide, but Brampton remains the sharpest example of the strain.

Four Pressures Converging on the Same Market

Rebecca Oakes, Vice-President of Advanced Analytics at Equifax Canada, pointed to loan size as the central amplifier in an interview with The Globe and Mail. The numbers confirm this: homeowners in Brampton carrying mortgages between $800,000 and $1 million had a delinquency rate of 1.13 per cent, compared with approximately 0.2 per cent for those with loans under $300,000. The size of the mortgage, as much as any other factor, predicts who is falling behind.

Power of Sale Activity at a 10-Year High

When a homeowner can no longer make mortgage payments and a lender exhausts other remedies, power of sale is the legal mechanism in Ontario that allows the lender to force a sale of the property to recover the outstanding debt. It is the most severe outcome for a homeowner in financial distress, and the numbers show it becoming significantly more common in Brampton.

Data cited in Younglai's Globe and Mail report, compiled by a local realtor specializing in distressed property transactions, shows that power of sale activity across both Brampton and its neighbouring city of Mississauga is now at its highest point in a decade. The comparison between the two cities is instructive. While Mississauga has also seen an increase, the volume in Brampton runs more than three times higher. In 2022, at the height of the real estate boom, there were only five forced sales in Brampton. By the end of 2025, that number had grown to 43.

Power of sale activity is a lagging indicator: the underlying financial distress driving it began months earlier. The numbers recorded today reflect missed payments and defaults from mid-2025 and before. With the bulk of the renewal wave still ahead, the trajectory points toward continued difficulty for a meaningful share of Brampton homeowners over the next two years.

What the Renewal Wave Means for Ontario Homeowners

OSFI estimates that approximately 1.3 million Canadian mortgages carry fixed payments and are set to renew for the first time since they were originated in 2021 or 2022, representing roughly 22 per cent of all mortgages in Canada. OSFI expects these homeowners to face material monthly payment increases when their renewals come due. For anyone who stretched their budget to buy during the pandemic price run-up, this language from the federal banking regulator carries real weight.

In Brampton, Madan told The Globe and Mail the situation is expected to worsen before it improves. The compounding nature of the problem, high housing costs layered with large family obligations and less financial flexibility, means that each new renewal cycle adds fresh pressure to households that have already been stretched thin for years. Ontario homeowners beyond Brampton facing similar circumstances should take the Brampton data as an early warning, not a distant one.

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