The August numbers from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board came out last week, and the line most people saw was that the average GTA selling price slipped back under a million dollars. That is true, and it is also the least useful number in the release. The figure that actually tells you what this fall will feel like in Markham sits underneath it: new listings fell close to seven times faster than sales did, which means the wide selection buyers have enjoyed all year is quietly disappearing.
Fewer sellers, not fewer buyers
Across the GTA in August there were 5,057 sales, down 2.1 per cent from a year earlier, which is a modest dip and roughly what I would expect in a hot, quiet month when families are away. New listings came in at 12,075, down 14.1 per cent, and active listings at the end of the month sat at 24,482, down 11.3 per cent from last August (Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, Market Watch, released September 3, 2026). Read those three together and you get a market where sellers stepped back considerably harder than buyers did.
That is a meaningful turn. For most of this year the leverage sat with buyers, and it sat there for one reason: they had options, and they knew it. A buyer who could walk away from a house because three similar ones were sitting a few streets over was a buyer who could negotiate. When the supply of comparable homes thins out, that leverage thins out with it, quietly and without any announcement.
What the Markham numbers say
York Region recorded 971 sales in August at an average price of $1,179,938, and within the region Markham averaged $1,208,692 (TRREB August 2026 community figures). Prices are still softer than a year ago - the GTA average was down 2.7 per cent, and the MLS Home Price Index, which adjusts for the mix of what actually sold, was down 4.5 per cent - so I am not going to tell you values are climbing, because they are not. What is changing is the competition, and competition is what sets the tone of a negotiation. A detached home in Berczy or Wismer listed in October will have fewer comparable homes sitting beside it than the same house would have had in May, and that difference shows up in how confident a buyer feels about pushing on price.
If you are selling this fall
The first thing I would do is price to the last sixty days rather than to the spring, because with the index down 4.5 per cent year over year, a comparable sale from April is telling you a story that has already ended. The second is to take presentation seriously. Homes across the GTA took an average of 35 days to sell in August, and in a market with a modest buyer pool, the listing that photographs well and shows well is the one that gets the early attention while the others wait. Thinner inventory helps you, but it does not rescue an optimistic price. It simply means an honestly priced home now has a better chance of being the obvious choice rather than one of six.
If you are buying
The instinct right now is to wait, on the theory that more homes and better prices are coming. I would be careful with that. The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 per cent on September 2, so borrowing costs are steady for the moment, and steady rates paired with shrinking inventory is the combination that historically ends a buyer's market rather than extends it. November and December in Markham are not seasons of abundant choice; they are the quietest listing months of the year. If you have seen a home this month that genuinely works for your family, the selection you are holding out for may not arrive before spring, and by spring you may be competing for it.
The bottom line
August was not a strong month for prices, but it was a clear month for direction: supply is contracting faster than demand, and that is what tightens a market. If you are selling, price to recent evidence and use the thinner competition to your advantage rather than as an excuse to reach. If you are buying, treat this fall as a narrowing window rather than a widening one. If you want to know what this looks like on your specific street, I am happy to pull the recent sales and walk you through them - the neighbourhood picture is often quite different from the regional headline.
