Financing a Duplex, Triplex, or Fourplex

Properties with 2-4 units are generally financed under residential mortgage rules in Canada — the same broad framework as a single-family home — while buildings with 5 or more units typically fall under commercial financing, with different qualifying criteria, rates, and terms.

If you plan to live in one unit of a duplex, triplex, or fourplex while renting out the others (an 'owner-occupied' multi-unit purchase), you may still be eligible for insured, lower-down-payment financing — a meaningfully different qualifying path than a pure investment property, which generally requires conventional (20%+) financing.

Lenders typically only count a portion of the rental income from the other units toward your qualifying income (commonly around 50-80%, similar in spirit to the rental income offset used for pure investment properties), to account for vacancy and expenses — run the numbers on our affordability calculator's rental income field to see how this affects what you qualify for.

Multi-unit properties also mean multiple sets of tenant relationships, maintenance responsibilities, and (depending on province) potentially different landlord-tenant rules if you're both living in and renting out units in the same building — factor the operational reality in, not just the financing math.