How Long Has That Richmond Hill House Really Been for Sale?

In August 2026, the average Richmond Hill home that sold had been on the market for 61 days. The number most buyers see on a listing told a different story. Average listing days on market, the counter tied to the current listing, was 37. That 24-day gap is the most useful piece of negotiating information in Richmond Hill right now, and almost nobody shopping for a home here ever sees it.

Those figures come from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's August 2026 Market Watch, released September 3. As of today, October 5, it is still the most recent report. TRREB's September report has not been posted yet.

Two counters measuring the same house

TRREB tracks days on market two ways. Listing days on market, or LDOM, counts the days a sold listing was active. Property days on market, or PDOM, counts the days a property was on the market before it sold, "irrespective of whether the property was listed more than once by the same combination of seller and brokerage during the original listing contract period."

Picture a house that sits for six weeks and gets taken off the market. A few days later it's back with fresh photos and maybe a new price. The listing counter starts over. The property counter keeps running. A buyer scrolling listings sees a home that looks like it just arrived, while the seller has been trying to sell for close to two months.

Daniel Foch described exactly this in a September 9, 2026 column for Real Estate Magazine. He wrote that a relisting "can make an advertisement look new while the seller has been trying for considerably longer," and called property days "the better place to start when discussing that history." He also pointed out that both measures describe only homes that actually sold. Homes that are still waiting aren't counted at all. So a 61-day average actually understates how long the slowest homes are sitting.

One limit on all of this. TRREB's definition only covers relistings by the same seller and brokerage. None of the material we reviewed says what happens to the counter when a home is relisted with a different brokerage, so we won't guess.

Richmond Hill's gap is wider than its neighbors'

Every GTA market shows some difference between the two counters. Richmond Hill's difference stands out in York Region, and it got wider over the summer.

In July 2026, Richmond Hill's figures were 37 listing days and 50 property days, a 13-day gap. In August the listing counter didn't move, and the property counter jumped by 11 days. On the number buyers see, nothing changed between the two months. Underneath it, the homes that sold in August had spent noticeably longer on the market in total, which fits more homes being relisted before they found a buyer.

The surrounding supply figures point the same way. Richmond Hill had 933 active listings at the end of August against 161 sales that month, and TRREB put months of inventory at 5.6. That's higher than York Region's 5.0 and the board-wide 4.6. When there's a lot of supply, a home that misses its first window is more likely to come off the market and try again, and each relisting stretches the gap.

The average price has its own problem

The time counter isn't the only thing that flatters Richmond Hill. Look at detached homes over the same two months.

From July to August 2026, Richmond Hill's average detached sale price rose from $1,569,133 to $1,667,913, up almost $100,000 in a month. Over the same stretch, detached sales fell from 97 to 74, and the median detached price slipped from $1,495,000 to $1,482,500. TRREB's MLS Home Price Index, which tracks the value of a typical home with consistent features, put Richmond Hill's detached benchmark at $1,524,300 in August, down 6.81% from a year earlier. The composite benchmark for all home types was $1,160,000, down 6.97%.

Detached prices didn't climb $100,000 while the median and the benchmark fell. What changed was which detached homes sold. An average is only the total of whatever closed that month divided by the number of sales. With fewer than 75 sales, a handful of large-lot homes can pull the average up on their own.

Richmond Hill has a lot of room for that kind of swing. TRREB's community-level figures for the second quarter of 2026 put Bayview Hill's average sale at $2,304,834 across 20 sales, while Langstaff averaged $766,174 across 74 sales. That data is a quarter old. It doesn't show momentum, but it does show how far apart prices are inside one city. When the mix of sales tilts even slightly toward the expensive end, the citywide average jumps without any single house being worth more.

Why both distortions point the same way

Each number flatters the market in a different way. The listing counter makes homes look fresher than they are. The average price makes values look firmer than they are. A buyer reading only those two numbers would conclude Richmond Hill is moving faster and pricing higher than the property-level and benchmark data show.

The detached figures make this concrete. In August 2026, Richmond Hill had 246 new detached listings, 518 active detached listings at month-end, and 74 detached sales. That's about one sale for every three new listings. Dividing active listings by August's sales works out to roughly seven months of detached supply. That's our own calculation, not TRREB's trend measure, but the order of magnitude is clear. Detached homes sold at an average of 97% of list price.

Condo apartments in Richmond Hill showed the same softness more plainly. There were 33 sales in August 2026 against 197 active listings, an average of 47 listing days, and an average sale price of 95% of list. TRREB doesn't publish property days by home type in these tables, so the full time on market for condos isn't available. Since the listing counter is already 47 days, the full count is at least that long.

At the GTA level, Foch made a related point. August's new listings fell 14.1% from a year earlier, and he cautioned against reading that drop as proof that sellers are holding firm. Fewer listings and slower sales can happen at the same time. In Richmond Hill, they did.

What to ask before writing an offer

Property days on market is a market-wide average, but the same logic applies to any single house. Before you put a number on paper, these questions help you see a listing's real history:

1. Has this property been listed before in the past several months, and at what asking price?
2. Was it taken off the market and relisted, and did the price change when it came back?
3. How long has it been on the market in total, across every listing?
4. Which nearby homes with similar lots and finishes are still unsold, and at what prices?
5. What did the closest comparable sales list for at first, and how many price cuts did they go through before selling?

Foch suggested the fourth and fifth questions in his own advice to sellers, pointing out that "an unsold competitor helps explain what buyers have been passing over." The same comparison works from the buyer's side. A detached home in a city with roughly seven months of detached supply, relisted after weeks without a sale, is negotiating against everything a buyer could choose instead.

None of this guarantees a discount. Some relisted homes were simply priced wrong the first time and sell quickly once corrected. What the full history tells you is whether the asking price has already been tested by the market, and how that test went.

FAQ

Is 61 days on market slow for Richmond Hill?

It was slower than Richmond Hill's own July 2026 figure of 50 property days, and slower than York Region's August average of 55. Aurora and King posted longer averages that month. Remember that it's an average of sold homes only.

Did Richmond Hill detached prices go up in August 2026?

The average detached price rose, but the median fell slightly, and the benchmark price was down 6.81% year over year. The rise in the average reflects a shift in which homes sold, not broad price growth.

When will September 2026 numbers be available?

TRREB had not published its September 2026 Market Watch as of October 5. Until it does, the August report is the most recent board data for Richmond Hill.

Does relisting with a new brokerage reset property days on market?

TRREB's published definition covers relistings by the same seller and brokerage within the original contract period. We didn't find an official source that addresses a change of brokerage, so ask about the full listing history directly.

If a Richmond Hill listing looks brand new and you want to know whether it really is, Sam Galloway can pull the full listing history, line it up against the competing homes that haven't sold, and help you build an offer around how long that home has actually been for sale. Get the Latest Listings First, along with the background the listing sheet leaves out.