Whitby homes asking $700,000 to $1 million

Roughly the same things: townhouses, semis and the older detached houses of each town's postwar neighbourhoods, with Whitby's older streets tending to offer the wider lots and Ajax's lakefront pockets offering the shorter train ride. The two towns rarely differ by a full price step for like homes, so most buyers choose on commute, schools and the specific street.

Yes, mostly among the postwar bungalows and side-splits scattered across Blue Grass Meadows, along Lynde Creek, into Pringle Creek and near the old downtown, plus the occasional smaller two-storey in Rolling Acres. They draw renovators and buyers planning a registered basement suite, so a saved search, alerts switched on, catches them before an open house does.

Typically it reaches Brooklin's freehold townhouses, some semis and the adult-lifestyle bungalofts, and it can reach a smaller older detached in the historic village core. The four-bedroom detached houses of the 2000s that dominate Brooklin's subdivisions usually sit in the next band up. Randy and Alexander Miller will know which Brooklin streets have recently traded below the line.