Durham Region Real Estate

Durham was created in 1974 and its regional headquarters sit in Whitby. Along the lake, Pickering and Ajax are the closest to Toronto and the most tied to it; Whitby and Oshawa form the middle, with Oshawa the largest city and the region's university and hospital hub; Clarington on the east is the fastest-changing of the five, with a new GO line being built to reach Courtice and Bowmanville. Cross Taunton Road and then the moraine and the character changes completely. Uxbridge is a trail town on rolling forest, Scugog is Port Perry and the shore of Lake Scugog, and Brock is farmland ending at Lake Simcoe in Beaverton. In the north, most homes sit on wells and septic systems outside the main towns, lots are measured in acres, and conservation plans for the moraine and the Greenbelt shape what can be built. Buyers who want a GO train, sidewalks and a Costco stay south; buyers who want quiet and land go north.

GO's Lakeshore East line stops at Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa, running local trains about every 15 minutes on weekdays and every half hour on weekends as of this writing. The Bowmanville extension adds four stations east of Oshawa, Thornton's Corners East, Ritson Road, Courtice and Bowmanville, along the CP Belleville corridor; construction reportedly started in January 2026 and no opening date has been published. Highway 401 runs the full width of the region. The provincially owned section of Highway 407 begins east of Brock Road in Pickering and reaches Highways 35 and 115 in Clarington, with the last stretch opened on December 9, 2019; the province reportedly removed its tolls on that section on June 1, 2025. The two north-south links, Highway 412 in Whitby and Highway 418 in Clarington, have been toll-free since April 5, 2022. North of the 407, Highway 12 and Highway 7 carry Brooklin, Port Perry, Sunderland and Beaverton traffic, and Durham Region Transit fills the gaps with PULSE routes on Highway 2, Simcoe Street, Taunton and Rossland plus On Demand service in the rural areas.

Two nuclear stations anchor the region's payroll. Darlington in Clarington runs four CANDU units, produces about a fifth of Ontario's electricity and finished a decade-long refurbishment in early 2026; beside it, construction of the first BWRX-300 small modular reactor started in May 2025 with the unit expected around 2030. Pickering's four remaining units are slated for a refurbishment that the province approved in January 2024 and expects to complete by the mid-2030s. General Motors resumed truck assembly in Oshawa in November 2021. Ontario Tech University, founded in 2002, shares a north Oshawa campus with Durham College and offers the country's only undergraduate nuclear engineering degree; Trent University Durham has a campus in the city as well. Lakeridge Health, the Durham District School Board and the Region itself are among the biggest employers, and a large share of residents still ride the train or the 401 into Toronto every day. That commuter pattern is why homes near the four GO stations attract a distinct buyer.

Seven of the eight municipalities are served by Durham District School Board (DDSB, offices in Whitby) and by Durham Catholic District School Board (DCDSB, offices in Oshawa). Clarington is the exception: its public schools belong to the Kawartha Pine Ridge public board and its Catholic schools to the PVNC Catholic board, Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington, both run from Peterborough. French-language schools come from Conseil scolaire Viamonde and MonAvenir. Every board draws its own boundaries and revises them as subdivisions open, so run the exact address past the board before you commit. Lakeridge Health runs the hospitals: Oshawa carries the specialist and cancer services, Ajax Pickering and Bowmanville are acute hospitals with emergency departments, Port Perry is a smaller acute site and Whitby is a specialty hospital. To use this site, open a city hub, then a neighbourhood guide, then a home-type page such as detached or townhouse to see what is listed there. Sellers should start on the selling pages, where the Miller team explains pricing, costs and timing for each city.