When is the best time to sell a house in Markham?

Where These Numbers Come From

The tables below are built from Greater Toronto Area monthly board reports, one figure taken from each month's own report, covering September 2024 through August 2026. September 2026 data had not been published at the time of writing.

Michael John Lau, a REALTOR® with the Kaizen Real Estate Team, among the most active real estate teams in Markham and York Region, built this from the monthly reports rather than from a seasonality article, because the seasonal advice circulating online is mostly assertion. Three caveats belong with it, and they are stated here rather than buried:

• Two years is a thin base. Each calendar month has two observations. Treat the pattern as indicative, not as a long-run norm.
• Both years sit inside a softening price cycle. That confounds any cross-year price comparison. Comparisons within a year are more defensible than comparisons across years.
• Prior-year figures get restated. Board reports revise earlier months, sometimes materially. Everything here uses as-published figures for internal consistency, so a number pulled from a later report's comparison column will not match.

These are regional figures. A reliable Markham-only monthly series is not published, so the seasonal pattern here is the Greater Toronto Area's, which Markham broadly tracks. For Markham's own current numbers, August 2026 showed 282 sales, an average of $1,208,692, 98% of list price and 33 days on market.

The Calendar Year, Month by Month

Averages of the two observations for each month, September 2024 through August 2026.

Sales per new listing is arithmetic on the two published columns, not a published statistic. It is the clearest available measure of how much competition a seller faces: a higher number means fewer new listings arriving for each sale that happens.

The Most Recent Twelve Months

What the Data Actually Says

The most sales happen in June

June 2026 recorded 6,770 sales, the single highest month in the two-year window. May 2026 was second at 6,583. If the question is where the buyers are, the answer is late spring.

Homes sell fastest from March to May

Days on market bottom at 27 in both April and May and 27.5 in March. January averages 41. That is a difference of roughly two weeks on the same house.

Sale-to-list ratios are firmest in spring

March through May run at 98.5% to 99% on the two-year average, against 97.5% in December. On a $1.2 million Markham home, a one-point difference in sale-to-list is $12,000.

December has the least competition, by a wide margin

This is the finding most sellers have backwards.

In May 2025, there were 21,819 new listings against 6,244 sales. A seller competed with roughly 3.5 new listings for every sale.

In December 2025, there were 5,299 new listings against 3,697 sales. A seller competed with roughly 1.4.

December's problem is not competition. It is pace and price: the slowest days on market of any month and the softest sale-to-list ratio.

September is the worst month to add a listing

September carries the lowest ratio of sales to new listings of any month, at 0.28. Listings return after Labour Day faster than buyers do. September 2025 saw 19,260 new listings, second only to May 2025 in the entire two-year window.

A seller who misses the spring window is often better served waiting for October, when the ratio recovers to 0.41, than rushing into the post-Labour-Day flood.

Choosing Your Month by What You Actually Need

What Matters More Than the Month

Michael John Lau's recommendation, after all of the above: do not let the calendar override your own circumstances.

A correctly priced, well-prepared home with open showing access sells in every month on this list. A current evaluation of your own home is worth more to that decision than the calendar is. An optimistically priced home with restricted showings sits in May. The seasonal effect is real and it is worth perhaps two weeks of time on market and a point of sale-to-list. Pricing and preparation are worth considerably more than that.

Two circumstances where the calendar should lose outright:

• You have already bought. Carrying two properties costs more per month than the seasonal advantage is worth.
• A life event sets the timeline. A separation, an estate, a job relocation or a family health matter is not a market timing decision.

One timing point specific to estates: probate commonly takes three to six months in the Greater Toronto Area. A death in March that clears probate in August lands the listing in September, the single worst month in this data. Where there is any discretion, that is worth planning around.

If speed is the priority, How to Sell Fast Without Leaving Money on the Table covers the levers. If price is, Ten Ways to Sell for Top Dollar does. The full process is in the complete 2026 seller's guide.

Next Steps

• Get a free Markham home evaluation — Worth more to the decision than the calendar.
• See how the selling process works — Including how a listing date gets chosen.
• Book a seller consultation — To plan a listing date around your own situation.

Michael John Lau, REALTOR® · Markham, Ontario · (416) 700-0286
Disclaimer. Michael John Lau is a licensed REALTOR® serving buyers and sellers in Markham, Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area. Figures are Greater Toronto Area monthly board data as originally published for each month, September 2024 through August 2026. Each calendar month has two observations and both years fall within a softening price cycle, so the pattern is indicative rather than a long-run norm. Sales per new listing is calculated, not published. Past market activity does not predict future results, and every property and timeline is different.