Georgina is the northernmost municipality in York Region, bounded by Lake Simcoe to the north, East Gwillimbury to the south, Simcoe County across Cook’s Bay to the west and Durham Region to the east. It’s 288 square kilometres, more than Newmarket and East Gwillimbury put together, and most of it is farmland, forest and shoreline. The 2021 census counted 47,642 people, up from 45,418 in 2016, and the Region’s planners expect about 71,000 by 2041, with most of the growth going to Keswick and Sutton, and Sutton’s share limited by what its sewage plant can take.

The town was formed in 1971 from the Village of Sutton and the Townships of Georgina and North Gwillimbury, and incorporated as a town in 1986. Keswick on Cook’s Bay is the urban centre, a cottage colony that became a suburb and grew faster once Highway 404 reached it; Sutton on the Black River, two kilometres back from the lake, is the old mill town, settled in 1821; Jackson’s Point beside it is the resort harbour; steamers and then the radial railway brought Toronto there from the 1870s. Around them are the hamlets: Pefferlaw on its river in the east, Udora and Virginia in the south, Baldwin on the moraine, Willow Beach, Roches Point and Belhaven on the water, Port Bolster at the Durham line. Georgina Island, Snake Island and Fox Island in the lake are the reserve of the Chippewas of Georgina Island, reached by ferry from Virginia Beach.

Georgina is far less diverse than the municipalities to its south: about 85 percent of residents were of European origin at the 2021 census, and English was the mother tongue of nine in ten.

Houses are nearly the whole market. Condominiums are a handful of listings, and a house here costs about half the Toronto freehold average and a little less than one in Newmarket. The lakeshore hamlets are the exception: the Historic Lakeshore Communities of Jackson’s Point and Roches Point average about 60 percent more than Keswick South, and the few houses for sale in Belhaven average above the Toronto figure. Sutton and Jackson’s Point together have the most listings and the lowest average in town; Pefferlaw and Keswick South are close behind. Georgina’s live numbers are in the panel beside this and refresh every day.

Georgina sells three things: a suburban house in Keswick, a small-town or hamlet house in Sutton, Pefferlaw or the villages, and a cottage or waterfront property on the lake. The prices for each sit far enough apart that a buyer should know which one they want before looking.

Keswick is the suburb. Its southern half, Keswick South, along The Queensway and the older streets near the bay, has mid-century houses on larger, irregular lots and the town’s main commercial strip. Keswick North, built through subdivision phases from the 1990s onward, has the regular lots and newer detached houses of a York Region suburb, at an average only a little above Keswick South. The Simcoe Landing community between Ravenshoe Road and Glenwoods Avenue is the newest part of it. Across Georgina, a three-bedroom costs well under half the average Toronto freehold and a four-bedroom about 30 percent more than a three-bedroom.

Sutton and Jackson’s Point are the old town and its resort. Sutton’s streets off Dalton Road and High Street have the old houses of a mill town, post-war bungalows and small subdivisions, and the lowest average price in Georgina. Jackson’s Point, Roches Point, Willow Beach and Belhaven are the cottage shore: original cottages, cottages extended into year-round houses, and full rebuilds on lots laid out for summer use a century ago, close together and close to the water. The waterfront lot is what you pay for, and a rebuilt house on it costs far more than the same house a few streets inland.

A lot of what’s for sale here has two bedrooms, much of it cottages or former cottages on or near the water. A two-bedroom costs only about 15 percent less than a three-bedroom on average, and a five-bedroom about 80 percent more.

The hamlets and the country are the third market. Pefferlaw, Udora, Virginia and Baldwin have village houses on large lots and rural properties on acreage around them, mostly on wells and septic systems. The Oak Ridges Moraine’s rules limit what can be built around Baldwin and the south. Pefferlaw’s average is close to Sutton’s; Virginia’s rural lots and estates average well above Keswick.

Renting means renting a house. There are well over a dozen houses listed for rent for every condo, and house rents run roughly 15 percent under the Toronto freehold average, a much smaller discount than on buying. A family that wants a year in Georgina before buying should expect a house and a short list.

Georgina’s prices move with Toronto’s. It’s the far end of the GTA commuting range, and many of the buyers who come here have looked at Newmarket and East Gwillimbury on the way up the 404. The gap to Toronto, about half on a house today, is the figure to watch.

Keswick behaves like any York Region subdivision market, following the school year with listings from late winter to June and again in the fall, and competing with the builder’s next phase in Simcoe Landing. Sutton is cheaper, and its growth is limited by its sewage plant, so there’s no builder phase to compete with there.

The waterfront has a season of its own. Cottages and lake houses list in spring and sell through the summer, when the water is warm and the buyer can see the dock in use. Prices on the shore depend on frontage, exposure, the depth of the water off the dock and whether the lot is on Cook’s Bay or the open lake. The average for the lakeshore communities moves with whichever large properties happen to be listed. Treat it as a signal, not a price per house.

Georgina has a winter season as well as a summer one. Lake Simcoe is called Canada’s ice fishing capital, Sibbald Point has 583 campsites and a public beach, and the hamlets fill with visitors in winter and summer, so a cottage here rents and sells on more than a July weekend. The counterpart is that a cottage bought as an investment competes with a lot of other cottages on the same lake, and the rules on short-term rentals are set by the town and can change.

The train doesn’t move the market here, because there isn’t one. Georgina’s prices track the 404, and the highway reaching Ravenshoe Road in 2014 is what restarted the Keswick subdivisions.

The family that wants a detached house and has been priced out of everything south of Green Lane buys in Keswick, where a four-bedroom costs about half the average Toronto freehold and a three-bedroom well under half. The couple that wants to live on or near the water, working from home or retired, buys in Jackson’s Point, Roches Point, Willow Beach or Belhaven. Pefferlaw, Udora, Virginia and Baldwin get the buyer who wants land, a workshop and quiet.

The trade is distance from everything. Toronto is about 70 kilometres away and there’s no train from Georgina; East Gwillimbury GO at Green Lane, in the next town south, is the nearest station, and its trains run only at peak. The 404 from Ravenshoe Road to downtown is the daily commute for those who make it, and it’s a long one. York Region Transit’s route 50 runs from Sutton through Keswick to Newmarket GO and Southlake, every day, and that bus is the only transit link to the rest of the region.

The hospital is Southlake in Newmarket, and so is the mall, Upper Canada Mall. The high schools are in Keswick and Sutton, and the nearest college campus is in King City. A household here has two cars or it has a problem.

What people get for it is the lake and the price. Keswick’s subdivisions are a short drive from public beaches on a lake that people drive up from the city to use. A house on the water here is a daily drive from Toronto rather than a weekend one. And a working family that would be renting in Toronto owns a house with a yard here. For a lot of buyers that’s the whole calculation. Count the driving before you make it.

This site has a page for seven of Georgina’s communities. Here they are, west to east along the shore and then inland.

Keswick North is the newer half of the town’s urban centre, built through subdivision phases from the 1990s onward, with wider streets, regular lots and newer detached houses, and it averages a little above Keswick South. Keswick South is the older half, along The Queensway South and the streets toward Cook’s Bay, with mid-century houses on larger, irregular lots, mature trees and the commercial strip, and it’s among the lowest-priced parts of the town. The two halves share Keswick High School, Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Academy and the Multi-Use Recreation Complex.

Historic Lakeshore Communities is the string of old cottage settlements along the shore between Roches Point on Cook’s Bay and Jackson’s Point: original cottages, extended cottages and full rebuilds on small lots near the water, with Jackson’s Point’s small commercial strip, De La Salle Park beach and marina. It averages about 60 percent above Keswick South. Belhaven, between Lakeshore Road and the water east of Keswick, is a few streets, a boat launch and a cluster of lakefront properties; the handful for sale at any time average above the Toronto freehold figure.

Sutton and Jackson’s Point, the old mill town on the Black River and its resort harbour, together have the most listings and the lowest average in Georgina; the lakeshore side of Jackson’s Point falls within the Historic Lakeshore Communities page.

Pefferlaw in the east is a hamlet on the Pefferlaw River three kilometres south of the lake, settled in the 1820s around a mill, with a small commercial core at Pefferlaw Road and Lakeridge Road, a supermarket, a bank and a medical centre, and prices close to Sutton’s. Baldwin is a crossroads hamlet on the Oak Ridges Moraine south of Sutton, with forested rural lots and the moraine’s limits on development around it. Virginia is a crossroads on Mount Albert Road in the south, with no services and rural properties on acreage around it; its average is pulled up by the estates, and the Georgina Island ferry leaves from Virginia Beach on the shore to its north.

Udora in the southeast corner, split with Durham Region, and Port Bolster at the Durham line are the other hamlets.

Street by street, each community page gives the schools, the roads and recent sale prices.

Highway 404 ends at Woodbine Avenue just south of Ravenshoe Road at the bottom of Keswick, and it has ended there since 17 September 2014, when the extension north from Green Lane opened. The extension put Keswick on a freeway to the 401 and the Don Valley Parkway, and the Simcoe Landing subdivisions resumed building after it opened. From Keswick the drive to downtown Toronto is about 65 kilometres on the 404 and the DVP; from Sutton and Jackson’s Point it’s 70 to 75 kilometres, by Dalton Road or Woodbine to the 404.

There’s no GO train in Georgina. The nearest stations are East Gwillimbury GO at Green Lane, in the next town south, and Newmarket GO on Davis Drive, both on the Barrie line and both with trains to Union only in the morning peak and back in the afternoon and evening. The ride from East Gwillimbury takes just over an hour before the drive and the parking are counted. All-day service on the Barrie line is a provincial plan with no date.

Highway 48 crosses the town from Mount Albert through Sutton and past Pefferlaw to Highway 12 near Beaverton, and it’s the road east to Durham and the Kawarthas. The Bradford Bypass, under main construction since May 2026, will join Highway 400 near Bradford to the 404 near Queensville in East Gwillimbury, and once it opens Keswick will have a freeway west to Barrie and the 400.

York Region Transit’s route 50, the Queensway bus, runs seven days a week from Sutton through Keswick and the Health and Active Living Plaza in Queensville to Southlake and Newmarket GO, and route 51 runs a few afternoon trips inside Keswick to the recreation complex. Those two routes are the transit. The Georgina Island ferry, which carries 18 cars and 50 passengers, runs from Virginia Beach to the island in the ice-free months. Cycling is for pleasure, on the quiet concession roads and the shore, not for commuting.

Lake Simcoe is 722 square kilometres of water, part of the Trent-Severn Waterway between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, and Georgina has the south shore of it from Cook’s Bay east to Port Bolster. The public beaches, marinas and launches along that shore are why people live here.

Sibbald Point Provincial Park, 225 hectares between Jackson’s Point and Pefferlaw, has a long sand beach on the open lake, 583 campsites, picnic grounds and a forest trail. Eildon Hall, the Sibbald family’s 1830s house, is a museum inside it. St. George’s Anglican Church next to the park, finished in 1877, has Stephen Leacock and Mazo de la Roche in its churchyard. The park opened in 1957 and the day-use area is open all year.

Jackson’s Point has De La Salle Park and its beach, the harbour and the marina, and the Salvation Army’s camp and conference centre on grounds it bought in 1917. Willow Beach and Belhaven have their own small beaches and launches. In winter the lake freezes, the huts go out, and Lake Simcoe becomes what people call Canada’s ice fishing capital, with tournaments on the ice and the hamlets full on weekends.

Inland, the Pefferlaw River runs through its hamlet, the Black River through Sutton, and the Oak Ridges Moraine rises through Baldwin and the south of the town, with the forest and rules that come with it. The Keswick Multi-Use Recreation Complex on Garrett Styles Drive opened on 2 March 2024 with a pool, a double gymnasium, a walking track and the library’s Discovery Branch, and the town calls it one of the largest projects in its history.

Georgina’s shopping is on The Queensway in Keswick. The strip from Keswick Marketplace south along The Queensway has the supermarkets, the plazas and the chain restaurants for the whole town. Sutton’s small downtown on Dalton Road and High Street, by the Black River, has the shops and restaurants of a mill town of about 6,000 people. Pefferlaw has a supermarket, a bank, a post office and a medical centre of its own. For anything more, the town drives to Newmarket: Upper Canada Mall at Yonge and Davis Drive, and Main Street Newmarket for the night out.

The hospital is Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, a long drive from every part of Georgina and a longer one from Pefferlaw and Udora, with more than 3,000 staff and the regional cardiac and cancer programs for northern York Region and southern Simcoe County. Southlake’s second hospital, endorsed by the province in April 2026 for Queensville in East Gwillimbury, will be closer to Keswick than Davis Drive is when it opens, and there’s no date for it yet. A buyer who needs a hospital close by should measure that drive before buying.

Georgina has no employer on the scale of Southlake or the Region’s offices in Newmarket. The town, the school boards, the park, the marinas, the trades and the shops employ people here, and the rest commute: to Newmarket, to the hospital and the Region’s offices, down the 404 to Markham and Richmond Hill, or to Toronto. Farming is still real in the south and east of the town, and the lake supports marinas, boat dealers and the winter hut operators.

Georgina’s public schools fall under the York Region District School Board, its Catholic ones under the York Catholic District School Board. Both publish an address lookup, and in Keswick, where new subdivisions open every year, boundaries move; check the lookup for the house, not the neighbourhood.

The public board has two secondary schools in Georgina. Keswick High School on Biscayne Boulevard opened in September 2000 and serves the Keswick subdivisions. Sutton District High School on Dalton Road, open since 1956 with about 500 students, is the nearest public high school for Sutton, Jackson’s Point, Pefferlaw and the eastern hamlets. The Catholic board’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Academy on Glenwoods Avenue in Keswick, from 2001, takes Grades 7 to 12 for the whole town. The public board runs eight elementary schools in Keswick alone and the Catholic board two, and the Simcoe Landing plans include another elementary and another secondary school when the population supports them.

Students from Baldwin, Virginia and Udora ride a long way to school. Udora is split with Durham Region, so families there should check which board and which municipality their address falls in before assuming anything.

There’s no post-secondary campus in Georgina. Seneca Polytechnic’s King Campus in King City is the nearest, and it’s a long drive.

Georgina’s growth is in Keswick, in the Simcoe Landing community between Ravenshoe Road and Glenwoods Avenue, which resumed construction after the 404 extension and was into its ninth phase by 2017 across former farmland. The plans for it include an elementary and a secondary school and parks. The Region’s forecast has Georgina at 71,300 people by 2041, up from 44,700 in 2011, and puts most of that in Keswick and Sutton; Sutton’s share is capped by what its sewage treatment plant can handle, so Keswick takes the rest. A buyer in Keswick North is buying into a subdivision the forecast expects to keep growing; a buyer in Sutton is buying into a town the forecast caps.

Southlake’s second hospital in Queensville, endorsed in April 2026 with $10 million for planning and no construction date, will cut the drive to an emergency department for everyone in Keswick. The Bradford Bypass, under main construction since May 2026, will join the 400 to the 404 south of the Georgina line, and it will make Keswick a place you can reach from Barrie and the west without a drive through Bradford and Holland Landing. Both bring access and traffic.

The lake itself is the other thing changing. Every cottage sold to a year-round buyer and rebuilt is one fewer cottage, and the Historic Lakeshore Communities are a mix now of original cottages, extended ones and full rebuilds. A buyer who wants the old cottage shore should buy it soon; a buyer who wants a new house on the water has more choice every year.

How far is Georgina from Toronto, and can you commute?

Keswick is about 65 kilometres from downtown Toronto and Sutton about 75, and people do commute, but by car, because there’s no train in Georgina. Highway 404 ends at Ravenshoe Road at the south end of Keswick, and from there it runs straight down to the 401 and the Don Valley Parkway; from Sutton or Jackson’s Point you drive Dalton Road or Woodbine Avenue to reach it. The nearest GO station is East Gwillimbury at Green Lane, in the next town south, with ten trains to Union on weekday mornings and the returns in the afternoon and evening, nothing midday, and a ride of just over an hour on top of the drive and the parking. The province’s plan for all-day service on the Barrie line has no date. York Region Transit’s route 50 runs every day from Sutton through Keswick to Newmarket GO and Southlake, and it’s the only bus to the rest of the region. For a household with one person in downtown Toronto two or three days a week and the other working locally or at home, Georgina works and the price makes up for the drive. For a household with two people in Toronto five days a week, it’s a long day, and Newmarket or East Gwillimbury, with their own stations, cost more for a reason. Markham and Richmond Hill are a shorter drive down the 404 and a more realistic daily destination than Bay Street. The Bradford Bypass, under construction since May 2026, changes the drive west to Barrie and the 400, not the drive to Toronto.

Is Georgina cheaper than Newmarket and East Gwillimbury?

Yes. A house in Georgina costs about half the Toronto freehold average, a little less than one in Newmarket, and about a fifth less than one in East Gwillimbury, and that’s the town-wide average with the waterfront in it. Take the shore out and the gap widens: Sutton and Jackson’s Point together have the lowest average in Georgina, Keswick South and Pefferlaw are close to it, and all three sit at about the price of Newmarket’s cheapest neighbourhood. A three-bedroom house in Georgina costs well under half the average Toronto freehold, and a two-bedroom, often a cottage, about 15 percent less than a three-bedroom. The discount disappears on the lakeshore. The Historic Lakeshore Communities average about 60 percent more than Keswick South, and the handful of Belhaven lakefront properties for sale at any time average above the Toronto freehold figure. Three costs run the other way. Georgina’s own 2026 budget put the tax levy up 2.25 percent plus a 1.25 percent infrastructure levy, about $100 a year on the average detached house, assessed at $454,000. York Region added 3.28 percent plus a one percent transit and infrastructure levy on its share, about $67 for the average Georgina household. Water and sewer rates for households on the municipal systems rose 9.3 percent. And many households here run two cars, because the nearest train, hospital and mall are all in Newmarket; CAA puts a mainstream compact at roughly $9,500 a year, insurance and fuel included. A family moving from a Newmarket house saves on the house and spends some of it on the road.

Is Georgina a good place to buy a cottage or a waterfront property?

Yes, if you buy with the lake’s rules and the drive in mind. Lake Simcoe is 722 square kilometres, about 70 kilometres from downtown by the 404, with public beaches at Sibbald Point, De La Salle Park and Willow Beach and a winter season on the ice. The shore from Roches Point on Cook’s Bay through Jackson’s Point to Belhaven and Pefferlaw is a century-old cottage colony, with small lots, narrow roads and a mix of original cottages, year-round conversions and new builds. Prices depend on frontage, exposure, water depth off the dock and whether you are on the bay or the open lake. The average for the lakeshore communities moves with whichever large properties happen to be listed, so look at individual sales, not the average. Before you offer, find out whether the lot is municipally serviced or on a well and septic, and if septic, when it was last inspected. Check the shoreline permits, because the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority regulates work at the water’s edge and a dock or a wall built without one is your problem after closing. Ask whether the road is maintained year-round, because some cottage roads are private, and read the town’s rules on short-term rentals if you plan to rent it out. Lake Simcoe is a daily drive from Toronto rather than a weekend one, and the cottage shore is filling with year-round houses. Buy the view you want while the old cottages are still there.

Which part of Georgina is best for a family with children?

Keswick, for most families, and Sutton for the ones who want a small town and a lower price. Keswick North has the newest houses and its average is only a little above Keswick South’s. The south half has the older houses on bigger lots and the Queensway shops, and it’s among the lowest-priced parts of the town. Both halves share Keswick High School, Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Academy, the Multi-Use Recreation Complex with its pool and double gym, the end of the 404 for the parent who drives to work, and the eight public elementary schools the board runs in Keswick; both are a short drive from the public beaches. Sutton has Sutton District High School, open since 1956 with about 500 students, a small-town main street on the Black River, Sibbald Point nearby, and the lowest average price in Georgina together with Jackson’s Point. Pefferlaw has a supermarket and a medical centre, and prices close to Sutton’s, but a long bus ride to high school. The lakeshore hamlets are quieter, dearer and further from everything a teenager wants. The rural hamlets of Baldwin, Virginia and Udora mean a well, a septic tank and a long school bus route, and Udora families should check which side of the Durham line their address falls on before assuming a school. In Keswick, where new streets open every year, the board’s lookup for the exact house is the only answer that counts.

Price on the Georgina shore depends on frontage, exposure, how deep the water is off the dock and whether the lot faces Cook’s Bay or the open lake, and none of that appears in a listing photo. A Toronto agent won’t read it. They also won’t know that Sutton’s growth is capped by its sewage plant while Keswick resales compete with the next Simcoe Landing phase, or that the nearest train is at Green Lane in East Gwillimbury, an hour from Union before you add the drive.

The agent we refer Georgina buyers to sells cottages, Keswick four-bedrooms and Pefferlaw acreage, and prices each by its own rules. Tell them you want a year-round house on the lake with a permitted dock, or a Keswick North house that doesn’t back onto construction, and they’ll pull the shoreline permits and the septic file before you drive up. They’ll also tell you what the town’s short-term rental rules allow.

Read the seven community pages first, then let us know what you’re after and we’ll connect you.