By Sandy Mackay, who leads Found Spaces Realty Group in Burlington, Hamilton and Niagara.
The average house price in Burlington, Ontario was $1,145,039 in August 2026. That figure covers freehold homes only: detached, semi-detached and townhouse sales. It's down 7% from August 2025.
That's the number. Here's the catch. Almost no one in Burlington sells an "average" house. If you're thinking of listing, the more useful figures are how long homes are taking to sell and how many never sell at all.
All the figures below come from our Burlington market report for August 2026. They are residential sales only.
What the $1,145,039 counts, and what it leaves out
The average is built from 222 home sales in August. That's down 2% from a year earlier, so the pace of buying held up better than prices did.
Condos are in that 222 count, but they aren't in the price. So if you own a condo near Brant Street or out by the Appleby GO, the $1.14 million figure tells you almost nothing about your unit. You need condo sales from your own building, or buildings like it.
There's a second gap. An average takes every sale, adds them up and divides. One Lakeshore Road sale in a month can drag it up. A cluster of townhouse sales in Orchard or Millcroft can pull it down. Your home didn't change. The mix did.
That's why I tell sellers to treat the average like the weather report for all of Halton. Useful. Not the temperature on your porch.
Why a 7% drop doesn't mean your house lost 7%
This is the part people get wrong most often.
When the average falls 7%, two very different things could be going on. Prices on similar homes could be softer. Or fewer high-end homes could have sold that month, so the average slid even though a typical Roseland bungalow held its value. Usually it's some of both.
You can't tell which from one monthly figure. So here's what I actually do before I put a number on a Burlington home:
- Pull the sold homes on your street and the streets around it from the last six to twelve months.
- Split them by type. A Tyandaga ravine lot and a Tyandaga semi are different markets.
- Look at what sat. Expired and terminated listings tell you where buyers said no.
If you check your area on HouseSigma or Realtor.ca, do the same. Look at solds, not asking prices. Asking prices are hopes.
The takeaway: the Burlington average is a headline. Your price comes from your street, your lot and the homes buyers actually paid for in the last few months.
The numbers that matter more to a seller: 36 days and 4.2 months
In August 2026, freehold homes in Burlington took an average of 36 days to sell. That's a little over five weeks.
Five weeks changes how you plan. If you're buying your next home at the same time, you can't count on a sale in the first weekend. Build that time into your closing dates, or talk to your lender about bridge financing before you firm up the purchase.
Then look at supply. There were 421 new listings in August and 924 homes for sale at the end of the month. At August's pace of sales, that's about 4.2 months of inventory. If no new home came on the market, it would take a bit over four months to sell everything that's out there.
What that means in plain terms: buyers have choices. They can walk through six homes on a Saturday and wait to see what happens to the other five. Your home is being compared the whole time.
So the first two weeks matter a lot. That's when your listing is new and the buyers who've been waiting see it. A home that's priced and prepared right tends to get its best attention early. A home that sits past the average starts to collect questions. Buyers wonder what's wrong with it, even when nothing is.
Why 45% is the number I'd tape to the fridge
Over the last 12 months, 45% of new listings in Burlington ended in a sale.
Read that twice. More than half the homes that came on the market didn't sell as listed. Some came off and came back at a lower price. Some were pulled because the owners changed plans. Some just expired.
I'll say what I think, and some agents won't like it. Most of those listings didn't fail because of the market. They failed because the price was set from hope, or from what a neighbour got two years ago, or from the average in a headline.
The owners who sell in a 4.2-month market usually do three things:
- They price to the solds from the last few months, even when that stings.
- They fix the small stuff buyers will use against them: the dated light fixtures, the tired front door, the stain on the basement ceiling.
- They decide in advance what they'll do if there's no strong offer by week three.
None of that is exciting. It's what separates the 45% from everyone else.
Where the average breaks down: waterfront and homes over $1.5 million
If your home is on the lake, in Shoreacres, or on a big lot in Roseland or Aldershot, the $1,145,039 average is close to useless for you.
Those homes trade in small numbers. Some months there are only a handful of sales, or none, in a given pocket. With so few sales, you can't build a price from an average. You build it from the few true comparables, and then you adjust for the things that don't show up in square footage: feet of shoreline, a south or west view over the water, how private the drive is, the condition of the break wall.
The buyer is different too. A lot of them aren't in a rush. They'll wait months for the right home. That means the marketing has to reach people who aren't scrolling listings every morning. Good photos alone won't do it. For a look at how we think about that end of the market, our guide to Burlington luxury and waterfront homes goes through it. And our write-up of 868 Danforth Place and its 130 feet of Burlington waterfront shows what a real waterfront listing looks like, detail by detail.
One more thing for estate, divorce and inherited-home sales at this level. The same rule applies. Price from the solds, not from what the home meant to the family. It's hard. It's also the fastest way to get everyone to the other side.
Questions people ask
Is 4.2 months of inventory a buyer's market or a seller's market in Burlington?
It sits in the middle. A common rule of thumb in Canadian real estate is that under about four months favours sellers and over about six favours buyers. At 4.2 months, Burlington in August 2026 was balanced, leaning a little toward buyers. That means fair prices sell, and stretched prices wait.
What's the difference between the average and the median house price?
The average adds every sale and divides by the number of sales. The median is the sale right in the middle when you line them all up by price. In a city like Burlington, where a few lakefront sales can run far above the rest, the average tends to sit higher than the median. Neither one replaces a look at the sales on your own street.
How can I find out what my own Burlington home is worth?
Start with our instant home evaluation, which gives you a range in a few minutes. Then check sold prices near you on HouseSigma, and pay attention to the date of each sale, since a sale from last spring may not reflect today. If you're getting close to listing, have someone walk through the home. Things like an updated kitchen or a wet basement move the price in ways an online tool can't see.
Find out where your home sits against the average
The August 2026 average of $1,145,039 is a starting point. What you want is your own number, based on your street, your lot and what buyers are paying right now.
Get your instant home evaluation to see a price range for your Burlington home. If you'd like me to look at the solds behind it with you, I'm happy to.