In September 2026 the benchmark price of a Coquitlam townhouse was $976,600, according to Greater Vancouver REALTORS®. That is $23,400 under $1,000,000, the highest price at which a first-time buyer gets all of the GST back on a new home. On October 2, 2026, 96 new townhouses, half duplexes and row houses were for sale in Coquitlam on VanPlex. 22 of them were priced at or under that line.
I’m Michael Lee, a REALTOR® with eXp Realty. My practice is Cityecho, focused on Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam. Our slogan is “Connection. Clarity.” In practice that means telling owners what is happening with prices, what the rules say, and what the numbers look like, including the parts that are complicated.
This article is for owners who have built, or are building, a multiplex in Coquitlam and now have to sell the homes in it. Coquitlam adopted its small-scale housing zoning on June 9, 2025. The rules that decide your price and your timeline come from four places: the City, the Province, the federal government and the market.
What is the Coquitlam market doing in 2026?
Prices are lower than a year ago in every home type. The Greater Vancouver REALTORS® report for September 2026, released on October 2, 2026, puts the Coquitlam benchmark prices here:
| Coquitlam, September 2026 | Benchmark price | Change in one year |
|---|---|---|
| Detached house | $1,584,400 | -6.6% |
| Townhouse | $976,600 | -6.5% |
| Apartment | $640,100 | -7.3% |
Source: Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, September 2026 statistics package. The benchmark is the price of a typical home in the MLS® Home Price Index, so it is a different figure from an average or a median sale price.
The same report counts attached homes, which covers townhouses and duplexes, so it is the group a multiplex home is sold in. In Coquitlam in September 2026:
| Coquitlam attached homes | September 2025 | September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| New listings | 118 | 121 |
| Sales | 37 | 33 |
| Sales as a share of new listings | 31% | 27% |
| Median sale price | $1,060,000 | $1,075,000 |
Source: Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, September 2026 statistics package.
Over July to September 2026 there were 126 attached sales in Coquitlam, against 120 in the same three months of 2025. So buyers are still buying. With 121 new listings and 33 sales in a single month, a new listing competes with many others, and the price has to be right on the first day.
Can the homes in a Coquitlam multiplex be sold one at a time?
Yes. The City of Coquitlam’s answer on its small-scale housing questions page is: “Small-scale housing like duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and multiplexes can be stratified and sold.” Stratified means each home gets its own title on a strata plan, so it can be sold and mortgaged on its own.
The same answer has a rule that catches owners: “In Coquitlam, secondary suites and accessory dwelling units cannot be stratified or subdivided.” A garden cottage or a carriage house stays on the same title as the main house. An owner who wants to sell two homes on one lot to two buyers needs a duplex or larger, on a strata plan.
This choice decides who your buyers are:
| Sell the homes one by one | Sell the whole building | |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Families and first-time buyers, one per home | One investor |
| Title | One strata title per home | One title for the lot |
| First-time buyer GST rebate | Can apply to each home | Not available, because it is for a buyer’s own primary residence |
| Number of sales | One per home | One |
Do you need a disclosure statement to sell before completion?
In B.C., marketing homes before they are finished is covered by the Real Estate Development Marketing Act. The Act defines a development property as “5 or more strata lots in a stratified building”, among other forms. A Coquitlam lot allows up to 4 homes (3 on a lot of 280 m2 or less), according to the City’s small-scale housing page. A four-home strata plan is under the Act’s threshold of 5. Have your lawyer confirm this for your project before you take a deposit.
Home warranty insurance comes before the first showing
The Homeowner Protection Act, section 22, says a person “must not sell or offer to sell a new home” while it is being built, or within 10 years of the first occupancy permit, unless it is covered by home warranty insurance. So the coverage has to be in place before the homes are offered for sale. The Act has a separate set of rules for owner builders.
The Homeowner Protection Act Regulation sets the minimum coverage:
| Coverage | Minimum term |
|---|---|
| Materials and labour | 2 years |
| Building envelope, including water getting in | 5 years |
| Structural defects | 10 years |
For a home in a strata building, the claim limit can be no lower than the original purchase price or $100,000, whichever is less. For the common property, it is the least of the total purchase price of the building, $100,000 times the number of homes, or $2,500,000.
The tax thresholds that change what a buyer pays
Two tax rules decide how much a buyer pays on top of your price. Both change at a fixed price.
GST and the first-time home buyers’ rebate. A new home carries 5% GST. Under the federal first-time home buyers’ GST rebate, a qualifying buyer gets back 100% of the GST, up to $50,000, on a new home at or below $1 million. Between $1 million and $1.5 million the rebate goes down, and Finance Canada states that it goes down “in a linear manner”. At $1.5 million there is no rebate. To qualify, the buyer must, among other conditions, sign the agreement with the builder on or after March 20, 2025 and before 2031, and be the first person to live in the home.
Property transfer tax. B.C.’s newly built home exemption removes the property transfer tax on a new home with a fair market value of $1,100,000 or less, for a Canadian citizen or permanent resident buying it as a principal residence. Between $1,100,000 and $1,150,000 the exemption is partial, and at $1,150,000 it ends. This exemption does not require a first-time buyer.
Put the two together, using the Province’s general rates of 1% on the first $200,000 and 2% up to $2,000,000:
| Price of the new home | GST rebate | Property transfer tax saved | Total saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| $900,000 | $45,000 | $16,000 | $61,000 |
| $1,000,000 | $50,000 | $18,000 | $68,000 |
| $1,100,000 | $40,000 | $20,000 | $60,000 |
| $1,250,000 | $25,000 | $0 | $25,000 |
| $1,500,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
For a buyer who qualifies for both programs. Calculated from the Canada Revenue Agency, Finance Canada and Government of B.C. rules listed above.
Here is what that means for a list price. Take two homes, one listed at $999,900 and one at $1,049,900, with GST charged on top of the price. A qualifying first-time buyer pays $999,900 for the first: the GST is rebated in full and there is no transfer tax. For the second, the rebate is $45,010 of the $52,495 GST, so the buyer pays $1,057,385. That is $57,485 more for a list price that is $50,000 higher.
Price still has to follow value. If the home is worth $1,080,000 to the market, pricing it under $1,000,000 gives money away. When a home sits close to one of these lines, though, the price deserves careful thought, because a buyer who qualifies for the rebates will do this same math.
Where the competition is priced right now
Here is how the 96 new Coquitlam homes for sale on October 2, 2026 fall against those lines:
| Asking price | Homes for sale | What a qualifying first-time buyer gets |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000,000 or less | 22 | All GST back, no property transfer tax |
| $1,000,001 to $1,100,000 | 20 | Part of the GST back, no property transfer tax |
| $1,100,001 to $1,149,999 | 4 | Part of both |
| $1,150,000 to $1,499,999 | 49 | Part of the GST back only |
| $1,500,000 or more | 1 | Neither |
Source: VanPlex count of the new townhouses, half duplexes and row houses listed at vanplex.ca/multiplex-for-sale/coquitlam on October 2, 2026. Listing data from the MLS® System.
The median asking price of the 96 was $1,178,950. 34 of them are on Burke Mountain, 35 in Coquitlam West and 18 in Maillardville. 73 share a street address with at least one other home on the list, so most buyers are comparing several homes in the same project. A home in a building of four on a residential street is a different product from a unit in a large townhouse project, and that difference belongs in your listing.
Two taxes that fall on the seller
The BC home flipping tax. The home flipping tax applies to the profit on a property sold within 730 days of buying it. The rate is 20% for a sale within 365 days, and it goes down over the following 365 days. The Province lists exemptions for builders and building activity, including the case where “a housing unit is demolished and a new housing unit is constructed”. Even when you are exempt, the Province says you “will still need to file a BC home flipping tax return”.
GST if you rent before you sell. Some owners plan to rent the homes for a few years and sell later. The Canada Revenue Agency’s GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.3 says a builder who rents out a new home is treated as having sold it to themselves. For a building with several homes, the builder “must generally self-assess GST/HST on the fair market value of the whole of the substantially completed multiple-unit residential complex” when the first unit is rented. That can be a large tax bill with no sale to pay it. Talk to an accountant before the first lease is signed.
What I would do before listing
- Get the strata plan and the warranty in order first. The homes need their own titles to be sold one by one, and the Act requires the warranty before you offer them for sale.
- Decide early whether you are selling or renting. The GST result is different, and the decision is hard to reverse once a tenant moves in.
- Price each home on its own. A main-floor home with a yard and a top-floor home with a roof deck are different homes, even in the same building.
- Check each price against $1,000,000, $1,100,000, $1,150,000 and $1,500,000. Know which side of each line every home is on.
- Write the listing for the buyer the price attracts. At or under $1,000,000, explain the GST rebate in the listing, because a qualifying first-time buyer gets all of the GST back at that price.
If you are earlier in the process and still deciding whether your lot can hold a multiplex, VanPlex has a Coquitlam zoning guide, data on Coquitlam’s eligible lots, and a Coquitlam builder’s account of what the rules decided on its finished fourplex. If you are thinking of selling the lot to a builder instead, I wrote about what makes a Coquitlam lot worth more to a builder on Cityecho.
If you are getting ready to sell homes in a Coquitlam multiplex, I’m glad to go through the numbers with you. You can reach me at cityecho.ca.
Michael Lee | REALTOR®, eXp Realty, Cityecho. Market figures come from Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (September 2026, released October 2, 2026). Tax and legal rules come from the City of Coquitlam, the Government of B.C., the Canada Revenue Agency and Finance Canada, as read on October 2, 2026. This article is general information. Get advice from a lawyer and an accountant on your own sale.
