Moving to Markham in 2026: Tech Corridor to Unionville

Moving to Markham puts you in one of the fastest-growing, most economically diverse cities in the Greater Toronto Area, and the range of neighbourhoods on offer is part of why so many GTA families end up here. Some arrivals are relocating for a job along the Highway 7 tech corridor, home to the Canadian headquarters of IBM and AMD along with more than a thousand other technology and life-science firms. Others are trading a downtown condo for a townhouse in Cornell, or moving up to a detached home near Unionville's nineteenth-century Main Street. Fast Track Move has run crews out of our North York depot since 2016, and Markham — despite being one of the most overlooked cities in most movers' local knowledge — is a route we drive constantly. This guide breaks down what actually changes between a Markham Centre condo move and a Unionville heritage-home move, and why summer is when most of them happen.

Markham's population passed 338,000 at the last Statistics Canada census count, making it one of the largest municipalities in York Region and the fourth-largest city in the GTA. What sets Markham apart from most of its neighbours is the density of employers packed into it. The city brands itself as Canada's high-tech capital, and the claim holds up: IBM Canada's head office has sat at Steeles and the 404 since the early 1990s, AMD's Canadian operations are headquartered here, and more than a thousand technology and life-science companies operate along the Highway 7 corridor and the surrounding business parks. That employment base means a steady stream of corporate relocations, professional transfers, and new hires signing leases within a short drive of the office — and it is a large part of why our Markham moving jobs run year-round rather than in a single seasonal burst.

If your move to Markham is tied to a new job, there is a good chance you are landing somewhere along the Highway 7 corridor between Warden Avenue and Highway 404. This stretch has transformed over the past decade from office parks into a genuine mixed-use district, with new condominium towers, hotels, and retail rising alongside the established corporate campuses. Moving into one of these newer buildings means the same logistics as any high-rise move: booking the freight elevator two to four weeks ahead (sooner in peak season), providing a Certificate of Insurance naming the condo corporation as additional insured, and confirming a loading dock window before the truck leaves our depot. We handle a steady mix of both residential moves into these towers and commercial moves for the tech and professional-services tenants themselves — office relocations along Highway 7 come with their own rules, including our four-mover minimum crew and a subtotal floor on commercial jobs, and we bring anti-static wrapping and careful handling for server racks and sensitive electronics.

Drive ten minutes east of the Highway 7 corridor and the city changes character completely. Unionville's Main Street is one of the most photographed streetscapes in Ontario, lined with nineteenth-century storefronts, mature trees, and heritage-designated homes on narrow, deep lots. It is a genuinely charming place to live, and it is also one of the more technically demanding moves we do in Markham. Many Unionville properties have rear-lane access only, tight setbacks that limit where a truck can park, and heritage designations that restrict what modifications a homeowner (or a careless mover) can make to doorframes and trim. Our crews plan truck positioning before we arrive rather than improvising on Main Street, and we use furniture pads and floor runners as standard, not an upsell, on every heritage-district job.

Markham Centre, the city's designated downtown around Warden Avenue and Highway 7, has become the fastest-changing part of the city. What was mostly surface parking and low-rise commercial a decade ago is now a corridor of new condominium towers, many still under construction or in their first few years of occupancy. Moving into a brand-new Markham Centre building carries its own quirks: move-in coordinators who are still learning their own building's protocols, freight elevators shared across multiple towers on a single construction site, and Tenant Move-In forms that can take longer to process than the actual move. Closing dates on new builds also tend to cluster — a single tower can have dozens of closings in the same two-week window — so if your move is tied to a Markham Centre closing, book your crew the moment you have a firm date rather than waiting for keys in hand.

Away from the towers, Markham's family neighbourhoods each have a distinct layout. Cornell, on the city's east side, is one of Canada's best-known New Urbanist communities: front porches, rear-lane garages, and pedestrian-friendly streets that look wonderful and complicate a move. Loading and unloading generally happens from the laneway rather than the street, which means less room to maneuver a truck and more coordination with neighbours who share that same lane. Berczy Village and Wismer Commons, further north, are more conventional suburban layouts with generous detached homes and two-car garages — bigger jobs by volume, but more straightforward truck access. Cathedraltown adds another layer, with larger, architecturally distinct homes near the Angus Glen area. Whichever of these you are moving into, expect a larger crew: most detached-home moves in Markham's family neighbourhoods run a four- or five-mover crew rather than the two- or three-mover crews typical of a condo move.

Markham's road network works in our favour. Highway 404 runs north-south through the eastern half of the city, connecting to the 401 within about twenty minutes, and Highway 407 ETR cuts east-west along the city's southern edge, giving fast access to Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and the rest of York Region without touching downtown Toronto traffic. From our North York depot, most Markham jobs are a straightforward 404 or Don Valley Parkway run with predictable drive times outside of rush hour. That predictability matters on moving day: we can commit to a realistic arrival window instead of the generous "sometime this morning" estimate that trucks stuck on surface streets have to give.

Across the GTA, moving demand climbs every May and stays elevated through October, and Markham sees this pattern as sharply as anywhere in the region. Three things converge here specifically. First, families with kids in the York Region District School Board system time their move around the school calendar, which means late June through August absorbs a disproportionate share of the year's family moves. Second, Markham Centre and the other new-build corridors have a steady drumbeat of condo closings, and builders skew closing dates toward the warmer months when construction crews can finish exterior work. Third, lease turnovers across the rental market cluster at month-end, and July 1 and August 1 are consistently two of our busiest single days anywhere we serve, Markham included. The result is that our summer crews and trucks book out three to six weeks ahead for popular dates, especially weekends and month-end. If your move date has any flexibility, a mid-week or mid-month booking in the same season will almost always have more availability than the last Saturday of the month.

All Markham jobs carry a 3-hour minimum, and commercial moves (including Highway 7 office relocations) carry a 4-mover minimum crew.

Here is what that table looks like on paper for a real job. A two-bedroom condo move from a downtown rental into a Markham Centre tower is a textbook 3-mover job, and most 2-3 bedroom moves run 5 to 7 hours, so we will use 6 as a realistic middle. At the peak-season 3-mover rate of $259 an hour, six hours of labour comes to $1,554. Markham falls within our 25-50 km Local Truck & Travel band from the North York depot, which adds a flat $249 fee. That brings the subtotal to $1,803 before tax. Add 13% HST ($234.39) and the all-in total is $2,037.39.

Run the same job on a January weekday instead of a July one, and the labour math drops to six hours at the off-peak 3-mover rate of $219 an hour, or $1,314, plus the same $249 truck fee, for a $1,563 subtotal ($1,766.19 with HST). That is roughly $271 back in your pocket for choosing an off-peak date. For most families timing a move around a school year or a summer closing, off-peak simply is not an option, which is exactly why booking early matters more than chasing a lower rate once summer arrives.

The most common mistake we see is treating every Markham move as the same job. A Unionville heritage home, a Markham Centre high-rise, and a Cornell laneway house each need a different truck approach, a different crew size, and different paperwork lined up before moving day — assuming your building or street will accommodate a standard approach is how move-day delays happen. The second-most common mistake is booking too late in peak season: because summer demand is so concentrated around school-year timing and condo closings, the popular Saturday dates in June, July, and August are often gone six or more weeks out. Third, if you are moving into a new-construction Markham Centre building, confirm your building's specific freight elevator and Tenant Move-In requirements directly with your property manager rather than assuming they match the last condo you lived in — every building's process is a little different, and Markham's newest towers are still refining theirs.

Whatever pocket of Markham you are heading to, the move itself does not need to be complicated. Fast Track Move is CVOR-certified, carries the insurance every Markham condo and office building asks for, and has built up more than 925 five-star Google reviews helping GTA families make exactly this kind of move since 2016. Before your move, update your address through Canada Post and check the City of Markham website for waste collection, parking permit, and building-services information specific to your new address; StatCan's 2021 Census profile for Markham has the full demographic picture if you are curious what the city looks like today. We know the Highway 7 freight elevator schedules, the Unionville Main Street parking squeeze, and how much extra time a Cornell laneway really adds, because we run this route constantly. If you are planning a move to Markham this summer, get in touch for a free, no-obligation quote — call us at 647-931-2328 or request an estimate online, and we will walk you through exactly what your move will take. You can also visit our Markham movers page for more on the neighbourhoods we serve, check out our residential moving services for the full details on condo and house moves, or read our summer moving survival guide for more on navigating the GTA's busiest season.