--- mi_id: MIPR-node_87c450b type: press_release canonical_url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/residential-construction/press-release/british-columbia-small-scale-multi-unit-housing-reaches-usd-1628-5-million-in-2025-as-the-duplex-not-the-sixplex-carries-the-reform-pheonix-research/" md_url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/residential-construction/press-release/british-columbia-small-scale-multi-unit-housing-reaches-usd-1628-5-million-in-2025-as-the-duplex-not-the-sixplex-carries-the-reform-pheonix-research.md" schema: "@type": NewsArticle "@id": MIPR-node_87c450b url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/residential-construction/press-release/british-columbia-small-scale-multi-unit-housing-reaches-usd-1628-5-million-in-2025-as-the-duplex-not-the-sixplex-carries-the-reform-pheonix-research/" title: "British Columbia Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing Reaches USD 1,628.5 Million in 2025 as the Duplex, Not the Sixplex, Carries the Reform — Pheonix Research" description: "British Columbia's small-scale multi-unit housing market reached 6,400 units and USD 1,628.5 million in 2025. The duplex carries 34.6% of value, the sixplex 14.0%, and laneway permits have fallen 66.4% from peak." datePublished: "2026-10-24T02:54:40+00:00" dateModified: "2026-10-24T03:08:45+00:00" keywords: - British Columbia small-scale multi-unit housing market - SSMUH market size - BC Bill 44 multiplex - laneway house decline - Vancouver multiplex permits - residential construction market forecast isPartOf: - id: MISG-node_12eb7f8 type: CollectionPage url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/residential-construction/" name: Residential Construction - id: MIIN-node_958697e type: CollectionPage url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/" name: "Construction & Infrastructure" - id: MIWS-root type: WebSite url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/" name: Pheonix Research acf: phoenix_meta_title: "British Columbia SSMUH Market Reaches USD 1,628.5 Million in 2025 — Pheonix Research" phoenix_meta_description: "British Columbia's small-scale multi-unit housing market reached 6,400 units and USD 1,628.5 million in 2025. The duplex carries 34.6% of value, the sixplex 14.0%, and laneway permits have fallen 66.4% from peak." global_schema: organization: "@id": MIWS-root#organization "@type": Organization url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/" name: Pheonix Research website: "@id": MIWS-root "@type": WebSite url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/" name: Pheonix Research api: "@id": MIWS-root#api "@type": WebAPI url: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/" graph: node_id: MIPR-node_87c450b graph_node_endpoint: "https://graph.pheonixresearch.com/api/v1/query/live/node/MIPR-node_87c450b" graph_snapshot: "https://graph.pheonixresearch.com/api/v1/read/live/graph" graph_exclusions: "https://graph.pheonixresearch.com/api/v1/read/live/exclusions" graph_meta: "https://graph.pheonixresearch.com/api/v1/read/live/meta" graph_bundle: "https://graph.pheonixresearch.com/api/v1/read/live/bundle" discovery: discovery_json: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/.well-known/pheonix-discovery.json" llms_txt: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/llms.txt" sitemap: "https://www.pheonixresearch.com/sitemap.xml" --- # British Columbia Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing Reaches USD 1,628.5 Million in 2025 as the Duplex, Not the Sixplex, Carries the Reform — Pheonix Research **Pheonix Research has published a market report sizing small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH) construction in British Columbia at 6,400 dwelling units and USD 1,628.5 million of construction value in 2025, reaching 10,833 units and USD 3,384.8 million by 2033 — a value CAGR of 9.58 per cent against a volume CAGR of 6.80 per cent.** The provincial reforms of 2023 to 2026 made **1,147,785 single-family parcels** eligible for between one and six dwellings each, according to BC Assessment's 2026 revised roll. It is the largest rezoning in Canadian history by lot count. The market that has resulted from it is smaller, cheaper and differently shaped than the legislation implies: CAD 356,055 of construction value per dwelling unit, roughly 14.5 per cent of provincial housing starts by count, and a product mix in which the two-unit building outsells everything the law was most aggressive about enabling. ## The finding: the reform rezoned the lot, not the business What British Columbia changed was permission. It did not change the delivery channel, the financing, or the per-site cost stack — and those three decide how many doors a rezoned lot actually receives. Every SSMUH project carries a cost block that does not scale with the number of homes: design, engineering and energy modelling; permits, amenity charges and service connections; the servicing upgrade, which for infill is frequently the largest single line; development cost charges; and the interest carry across an approval period that runs from months to years. Published laneway cost breakdowns put design at CAD 15,000 to 40,000, permits and connections at CAD 10,000 to 20,000, and servicing and site works at CAD 15,000 to 50,000 before contingency — a mid-point stack of roughly **CAD 200,000 per site**. Spread across the building the law now allows, that fixed block works out to **CAD 100,000 per door on a two-unit lot and CAD 33,333 per door on a six-unit lot**. Development cost charges sit on top and are not small: City of Vancouver residential rates reach CAD 80,000 to 100,000 per unit in higher-density zones, with Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey at CAD 40,000 to 70,000 per unit. No other variable in this market moves by a factor of three on the same site, and none is more sensitive to the box a municipality drew around the parcel. ## Key findings - The duplex is the market. Two-unit buildings account for 1,900 of the 6,400 units — 29.69 per cent of volume and 34.60 per cent of value, at a CAD 415,000 construction ticket. It is the form most municipalities actually wrote, the form a lender will underwrite without a development pro forma, and the form a homeowner can occupy while building. - The five-and-six-unit building is the smallest of the five forms. The product the legislation pushed hardest for — no parking requirement, density bonusing on one unit only, no public hearing on the conforming bylaw — is 12.50 per cent of units and 14.04 per cent of value. - The secondary suite is the cheapest door in the province. 23.44 per cent of units for 12.51 per cent of value at CAD 190,000 per unit, and the only form that requires no redevelopment at all. Additions — suites and detached accessory units on lots that keep their principal house — are 2,350 units, 36.72 per cent of the total; redevelopments are 4,050. - Laneway house permits have fallen 66.4 per cent from their peak. City of Vancouver data records 730 permits in 2018, 365 in 2025 and a 2026 run rate of about 245. Over the same window the median construction value declared on a laneway permit rose 75.0 per cent, from CAD 200,000 in 2023 to CAD 350,000 in 2026. - The multiplex overtook the laneway house in 2025. Vancouver multiple-dwelling permits went from 114 in 2023 to 153 in 2024 to 376 in 2025, against 365 laneway permits — the first crossover. By early October 2026 the count stood at 218 multiplex permits against 184 laneway permits. - The market is concentrated where the reform's marginal effect is not. Metro Vancouver recorded 27,185 starts in 2025, down 3 per cent, and Victoria 4,859, up 16 per cent; Kelowna fell 31 per cent to 2,600 and Nanaimo 56 per cent to 448. The two southern coastal metros hold roughly seven starts in ten, but the reform's incremental effect is largest where land is cheap relative to construction cost — the Okanagan, the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island outside the capital. ## Market segmentation by building form, 2025 | Form | | Units | | Share of units | | Value (CAD m) | | Share of value | | CAD per unit | | Duplex (two units on one lot) | | 1,900 | | 29.69% | | 788.5 | | 34.60% | | 415,000 | | Triplex and fourplex | | 1,350 | | 21.09% | | 519.75 | | 22.81% | | 385,000 | | Multiplex of five or six, single-lot row | | 800 | | 12.50% | | 320.0 | | 14.04% | | 400,000 | | Detached ADU (laneway, coach, garden suite) | | 850 | | 13.28% | | 365.5 | | 16.04% | | 430,000 | | Secondary suite | | 1,500 | | 23.44% | | 285.0 | | 12.51% | | 190,000 | | **Total** | | **6,400** | | **100.00%** | | **2,278.75** | | **100.00%** | | **356,055** | Value per door runs from CAD 190,000 on a secondary suite to CAD 430,000 on a detached accessory unit — a 2.26-fold spread on the same lot and the same permission. Any shift in mix therefore moves revenue without moving unit count, which is why value compounds at 9.58 per cent against volume's 6.80 per cent. Part of that gap is mix, not construction inflation: the Building Construction Price Index for Vancouver residential construction rose roughly 48 per cent between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2026, materially faster than the 2.6 per cent a year the forecast assumes for value per dwelling. ## How the market was measured The unit base is built from the one metropolitan area that publishes the split. Greater Victoria recorded 599 duplex and row starts out of 4,859 total in 2025 — 12.3 per cent of its starts — and that ratio, applied as a blended 10.5 per cent missing-middle share to the province's 44,193 housing starts, produces the 6,400-unit base. Detached accessory units and secondary suites are added net of overlap with those starts, so no dwelling is counted twice. The five forms are then sized individually and summed: 1,900 duplex units at CAD 415,000, 1,350 triplex and fourplex at CAD 385,000, 800 five-and-six-unit multiplex at CAD 400,000, 850 detached accessory units at CAD 430,000 and 1,500 secondary suites at CAD 190,000. The segmentation table ties back to the headline on both dimensions — 6,400 units exactly, and CAD 2,278.75 million of construction value, or CAD 356,055 per dwelling. Value per unit is escalated at 2.6 per cent a year to 2033, and the currency is held throughout at the Bank of Canada's 23 October 2026 noon rate of 1.3993 Canadian dollars to the US dollar. The resulting path of 69,624 dwellings delivered from 2026 to 2033 is consistent with the province's own modelling, which puts the combined SSMUH and transit-oriented development effect at 216,000 to 293,000 additional net-new units over ten years — the forecast's delivery rate equates to an SSMUH share of roughly forty per cent of the low end of that range. ## About the report *British Columbia Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing Market Size, Share and Forecast 2026–2033* is published under Pheonix Research's Construction & Infrastructure coverage, in the Residential Construction segment. It carries six complete chapters, six segmentation cuts of which two are reconciled to the headline and two are explicitly qualitative, a year-by-year forecast to 2033, competitive and value chain analysis, and the full method behind the forecast. The report is available at [pheonixresearch.com](https://www.pheonixresearch.com/construction-infrastructure/residential-construction/market-report/british-columbia-small-scale-multi-unit-housing-market/). ## About Pheonix Research Pheonix Research is a market intelligence platform that queries a live graph of more than 500 nodes to surface leading signals and translate them into actionable, role-specific decisions. Its premise is that companies operate in value chains rather than industries, and its output is built to end in a specific action and timeframe rather than a chart. ## Media contact Research & Intelligence: research@pheonixresearch.com. Sales and engagements: sales@pheonixresearch.com. All enquiries receive a response within one business day.