What Markham Actually Is

Leading non-official languages are Cantonese at 71,905, Mandarin at 49,380 and Tagalog at 4,325.

Michael John Lau, a REALTOR® with the Kaizen Real Estate Team in Markham, Ontario and a two-time eXp ICON Agent, finds that the demographic profile is the thing that surprises people relocating from elsewhere in Canada most. Markham is a majority-immigrant city, and that shapes everything from the grocery stores to the restaurants to the languages you will hear at a community centre on a Saturday.

What Homes Cost

Markham sold at 98% of list price in 33 days in August 2026. These are city-wide averages across every neighbourhood and are not valuations of any particular property.

The Property Tax Surprise

This one catches almost every buyer relocating from a province with market-value reassessment.

Markham's 2026 residential rate totals 0.722889%, made up of City of Markham 0.177477%, York Region 0.392412% and education 0.153000%.

That rate applies to the MPAC assessed value, not the purchase price, and Ontario assessments remain frozen at 1 January 2016 values.

The City's own published example is a home assessed at $822,671 paying $5,947 a year, split roughly $1,460 to the City, $3,228 to York Region and $1,259 to education.

So a buyer arriving from British Columbia or Alberta, where assessments track the market, should expect a Markham tax bill that looks low relative to the purchase price. Multiplying the rate by what you paid overstates it, sometimes by thousands.

Getting to Downtown Toronto

GO Transit

Four Stouffville line stations serve Markham: Milliken, Unionville, Centennial, Markham and Mount Joy run through the city and its immediate edge, on a line that terminates at Union.

Service pattern: during weekday peak periods trains run roughly twice per hour over the full route but in the peak direction only. Otherwise service is hourly in both directions, with two-way hourly service between Union and Mount Joy seven days a week.

An honest note on timings: exact station-by-station travel times should come from GO's trip planner rather than from an article. The reliable sourced figure is Union to Stouffville at roughly 55 to 65 minutes, and Markham's stations sit between Milliken and Mount Joy along that run.

Driving

Markham sits on the 404 and 407, roughly 34 kilometres from Union Station. Free-flow drive time is about half an hour. Rush hour is a different matter entirely, and any buyer should drive their own commute at their own times before committing to an address. No published rush-hour figure is reliable enough to quote.

Viva and the subway

Viva Purple runs east-west along Highway 7 between Richmond Hill Centre and Cornell Terminal, 18.2 kilometres, 27 stops, at roughly fifteen-minute headways, with a branch serving Downtown Markham via Enterprise Boulevard. Dedicated rapidway runs from Bayview to Warden; east of Birchmount, Viva operates in mixed traffic.

The Yonge North Subway Extension will add two underground Markham stations at Clark Avenue and Royal Orchard Boulevard. Metrolinx expects it to cut travel times to downtown Toronto by as much as 22 minutes. No opening date has been published, so nobody should be planning around one. More detail is in the growth corridor guide.

Schools

Every Ontario address is served by four boards: one English public, one English Catholic, one French public and one French Catholic. In Markham those are the York Region District School Board, the York Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir.

Attendance is determined by home address, through boundary maps and the board's school locator, with boundaries set around each school's capacity and projected enrolment.

The warning that matters most for a relocating family: the York Region District School Board states that because of rapid population growth in some communities, it may be necessary for some new students to temporarily attend a school other than the one normally designated for their community, and advises new and incoming residents to check with the local school directly.

Never buy a Markham home on the assumption of a specific school without calling that school first. This is a real and frequently realised risk in the fast-growing communities.

The Administrative Checklist

OHIP

Ontario states it plainly: there is no longer a waiting period, and eligible applicants have immediate coverage. Eligibility requires physical presence in Ontario for 153 days in any 12-month period, presence for at least 153 of the first 183 days after establishing residency, and Ontario as your primary residence. Three original documents are needed: immigration or citizenship status, Ontario residency, and identity.

Driver's licence

Ontario has reciprocal exchange agreements with every Canadian province and territory, US states, and a list including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Taiwan and Ukraine. You must apply in person at a DriveTest centre with original identification, your valid licence and proof of driving experience. Testing requirements vary by jurisdiction and history.

If You Are Not a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident

Two things apply and both are significant.

The Non-Resident Speculation Tax is 25%, and it applies anywhere in Ontario. The rate rose from 15% in the Greater Golden Horseshoe to 20% province-wide in March 2022, then to 25% province-wide effective 25 October 2022. Older sources still quoting 15% or 20% are out of date, including one Ontario government page that has not been updated.

The federal prohibition on the purchase of residential property by non-Canadians currently runs to 2027. What happens after that has not been announced.

Anyone in this position should get advice specific to their status before making an offer, because the tax and the prohibition interact with immigration status in ways a blog cannot resolve.

Choosing a Neighbourhood

Markham's communities differ more than an out-of-town buyer expects, by several hundred thousand dollars and by decades of housing age.

• Unionville and Markham Village are the historic cores, with the oldest housing stock and the most established streetscapes.
• Berczy Village, Wismer Commons and Greensborough are newer planned communities in the northeast, popular with families.
• Cornell was planned around Markham Stouffville Hospital and is the clearest example of a walkable, higher-density Markham community.
• Thornhill and German Mills sit on the western edge, closest to Toronto and to the coming subway extension.
• Milliken and Middlefield in the south generally offer the most accessible price points.
• Angus Glen and Cathedraltown in the north are lower density with larger lots.

Michael John Lau's recommendation to every relocating buyer is the same: visit a shortlisted street on a weekday around 4pm. Who is outside, how fast traffic moves, whether children are playing and whether neighbours talk to each other will tell you more than any statistic.

The Buying Side

Financing, representation and the rest of the process are covered in the buyer's guide. The three numbers most relocating buyers want first are in how much you need to earn, what the down payment actually is and what credit score you need.

Two Markham-specific advantages worth knowing: Markham has no municipal land transfer tax, so buyers pay only the provincial amount, and Ontario's first-time buyer refund of up to $4,000 applies to resale homes as well as new ones.

Next Steps

• Explore Markham neighbourhoods — what each community is actually like.
• See how buyer representation works — particularly useful from out of town.
• Arrange a relocation consultation — before you book a house-hunting trip.