Vancouver Crossover: Multiplex Permits Beat SFH in 2025

In 2025, Vancouver issued more new-building permits for missing-middle multiplexes than for single-family homes — and it wasn’t close. We pulled the City’s full Issued Building Permits dataset (50,625 permits, 2017–2026 YTD), filtered to new construction only, classified strictly to the Bill 44 missing-middle product (excluding mid-rise rentals and towers that share the City’s “Multiple Dwelling” tag), and ran the numbers. The crossover ratio in 2025 is 3.24×. Earlier versions of this post over-counted multiplex twice — first by lumping in laneways/duplexes/townhouses, then by lumping in mid-rise rental buildings that share the same SUC tag. The current numbers are clean.

This is the real headline most people in Vancouver real estate haven’t seen yet.

Corrections: what changed from earlier versions of this post

This post has been corrected twice as the classifier got tighter. If you read an earlier version and remember different numbers, here’s why:

First correction (May 11, 2026): the original regex lumped in three categories that aren’t Bill 44 missing-middle multiplex:

• Laneway houses (5,220 new-build permits, 45% of all new-builds) — accessory dwellings, usually filed alongside an SFH on the same lot
• Duplexes (1,834, 16%) — historical zoning, not the new missing-middle product
• Townhouse / rowhouse complexes (51) — usually larger strata projects

Second correction: even after restricting to SpecificUseCategory = "Multiple Dwelling" (Vancouver’s own multi-dwelling tag), the count was still ~30% inflated because that tag also covers mid-rise rental buildings, apartment buildings, and towers — anything 3+ units, regardless of scale. One record was a 42-storey, 272-unit market rental tower at $101M. Another was a 6-storey, 49-unit rental building. These aren’t missing-middle.

The current classifier filters “Multiple Dwelling” records to require ≤8 units AND ≤4 storeys AND ProjectValue under $8M AND no tower / mid-rise / high-rise mention in the description. That isolates the true Bill 44 product. Result: 628 missing-middle multiplex permits since 2023, which matches what builders see on the ground.

What we measured

The City of Vancouver publishes every issued building permit as an open dataset. We pulled the May 2026 snapshot — 50,625 permits going back to 2017 — and answered a single question:

Among new-construction permits, how many are for Bill 44 missing-middle multiplexes vs. single-family homes, and how is that mix changing year over year?

Two filters do the work:

1. TypeOfWork contains “New Building” — drops alterations, demolitions, and additions. We’re measuring new housing supply, not renovations. This shrinks 50,625 → 11,611 permits.
2. Strict classifier with size filter, in priority order:
   • missing_middle_multiplex: SpecificUseCategory = Multiple Dwelling OR description matches multiplex / fourplex / triplex / N-plex, AND ≤8 units, ≤4 storeys, ProjectValue under $8M, no tower / mid-rise / high-rise mention
   • larger_multifamily: matches the multi-dwelling signal but fails the size filter — these are mid-rises, apartment buildings, and towers. Tracked separately.
   • duplex_only: description matches duplex
   • townhouse_rowhouse: matches townhouse / rowhouse
   • laneway: matches laneway house (accessory to an SFH)
   • sfh: matches 1 family / one family / single detached / single family
   • other: everything else

The full Python script is in scripts/permits-analysis/analyze_multiplex_vs_sfh.py in our repo. Run it yourself.

The numbers, 2023 → 2026

Strict-multiplex and SFH new-building permits by year:

For context, here are the categories we explicitly excluded from “missing-middle multiplex”:

¹ Larger multifamily = mid-rise rentals, apartment buildings, and towers that share the City’s “Multiple Dwelling” SUC tag with small multiplexes but fail the size filter (>8 units, >4 storeys, >$8M, or tower / mid-rise wording in description).

Laneway permit volume is steady around 420–450/year — that’s the dominant accessory-dwelling-unit pipeline in Vancouver. Duplexes have been declining as Bill 44 makes 3+ unit configurations more attractive on the same lot. Larger multifamily volume is also dropping (69 → 58 → 30 in three years) — the supply story has shifted from mid-rise rentals to missing-middle multiplexes.

Chart 1: Strict multiplex vs SFH permit counts

Chart 2: The ratio over time

The ratio crossed parity between 2024 and 2025 and kept climbing. 2025’s 3.24× ratio is not noise — it’s the result of two simultaneous shifts (below), and 2026 YTD at 2.94× shows the trend is structural, not a one-year spike.

Why the gap widened so fast in 2025

Two things happened simultaneously in 2024–2025, and both pushed in the same direction:

1. Bill 44 came into force. As of June 2024, every BC municipality must allow 3–6 units on a standard single-family lot by-right. In Vancouver that translated into the R1-1 zone permitting up to 8 units depending on lot size and configuration. Owners who would have built a custom SFH in 2023 had a more profitable option in 2025.
2. Construction costs and interest rates squeezed custom SFH proformas. A $4M+ custom home only pencils for owners building for themselves. The spec/investor SFH market — already a small slice of new-build permits — effectively closed.

So the SFH drop from 188 (2024) to 116 (2025) isn’t homeowners suddenly disliking detached houses. It’s the spec-build SFH category collapsing into the multiplex category as Bill 44 made the latter the higher-and-better-use on most R1-1 lots. The 3.8× year-over-year jump in multiplex permits (100 → 376) and the parallel 38% drop in SFH permits (188 → 116) are the same phenomenon viewed from two sides.

The number understates the unit shift

One permit is not one home. A 6-plex permit is a single line in the dataset, but produces six dwellings. An SFH permit produces one (sometimes two, with a secondary suite). Looking at 2025 in units rather than permits:

• New SFH permits: 116 × 1.2 = ~139 units
• New multiplex permits: 406 × ~4.0 = ~1,624 units

That’s roughly a 12:1 unit-production ratio in favour of multiplexes — on the same lot stock. The permit-count crossover happened in 2025. The unit-production crossover happened earlier — likely 2024 — and we just couldn’t see it because the headlines were tracking SFH permit counts.

Add laneway permits to the picture (422 in 2025) and the total ADU+missing-middle pipeline in Vancouver is producing several thousand units a year on lots that used to produce one detached house each.

What this means if you own a Vancouver lot

The market signal is unambiguous. The city’s permit office is now issuing 3–4 multiplex permits for every SFH permit, and the trajectory has been one-directional for three years. If you own a single-family lot in Vancouver and you’ve been waiting for the multiplex wave to arrive, it has already arrived. You’re just looking at the wrong indicator.

Three concrete checks to run on your property this month:

1. Run the proforma side-by-side

The right comparison isn’t “SFH today vs. multiplex today” — it’s “what does my lot pencil at as a 4-plex vs. a 6-plex vs. a renovated SFH vs. an SFH + laneway?”. The numbers will tell you which of those is realistic and which isn’t. Use the VanPlex proforma tool to get a same-day answer for your address.

2. Check if your lot is in the slice that pencils at 100%+ ROE

Not every lot is a multiplex lot. Lot dimensions, frontage, soil conditions, tree retention rules, and proximity to transit corridors all change the math. Our screening data shows roughly 2% of Metro Vancouver R1-1 lots currently pencil at 100%+ return on equity for a build-to-rent multiplex. The other 98% pencil at lower returns or don’t pencil at all — and on some of those, an SFH or SFH + laneway is still the highest-and-best use.

3. Don’t conflate permit count with construction count

A permit is the start of the project, not the end. The 2025 multiplex permits issued won’t all complete in 2025 — most will deliver in 2026–2028. So the housing supply effect of the crossover is still building. If you’re underwriting a build today, you’re underwriting against a 2027–2028 leasing market that will look very different from 2025.

Methodology and rerunning the analysis

The script is in our repo at scripts/permits-analysis/analyze_multiplex_vs_sfh.py. To rerun:

1. Download the latest Issued Building Permits CSV from the City of Vancouver Open Data Portal
2. Save it as ~/Downloads/issued-building-permits (1).csv (or update the path at the top of the script)
3. Run python3 scripts/permits-analysis/analyze_multiplex_vs_sfh.py

The strict classifier uses priority order: SpecificUseCategory = "Multiple Dwelling" is the strongest signal (it’s the City’s own missing-middle tag), followed by explicit multiplex / fourplex / triplex mentions, then duplex / townhouse / laneway / SFH each tracked in their own buckets. If you want to broaden the definition to include duplexes or townhouses, edit the classify() function — the categories are clearly named.

The bottom line

Vancouver crossed the missing-middle multiplex vs. SFH permit line in 2025 by a factor of 3.5×. The crossover is in the data, it’s holding into 2026 at 3.09×, and it’s the result of policy (Bill 44) and economics (cost squeeze on custom SFH builds) working in the same direction. If you own a Vancouver lot and you’re still benchmarking against single-family comps as your default exit, you’re benchmarking against the smaller-than-you-think slice of new construction.

Run the proforma. Check the lot. Make the decision against the new ratio, not the old one.