There are two sides to the multiplex conversation

Дата публикации: 24-07-2026 13:23:18

Just because you're allowed to build a four-plex or a six-plex, that doesn't mean everyone wants you to do it, warns this expert.

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The way Brandon Sage sees it there is a definite gap that exists between Toronto homeowners who might consider converting their home into a multi-tenant dwelling now that they can, and those that actually end up moving ahead with an actual build.

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Sage, a real estate investment and management advisor with Landlord Property & Rental Management Inc., a company that has invested in the creation of multiplexes for the past nine years, recalls sitting across from homeowners multiple times who were seriously considering a conversion, but instead ended up walking away.

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“It’s not because the zoning changed or the incentives aren’t real, but because of the things nobody is writing about,” he says. “These include the financing gap – most homeowners can’t access construction lending against a property they already own, the LTB (Landlord and Tenant Board) fear and the perception that one bad tenant is an irreversible mistake.”

There is, he adds, also, “the design decisions they don’t know to ask about until it’s too late and the quiet neighbourhood resistance that starts before a permit is even filed.”

According to Sage, anyone contemplating converting their home should have a thick skin, learn to be patient, be sure to do all of their homework and be prepared to face NIMBYism (Not in my backyard).

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In 2023, the city of Toronto approved policy and zoning changes to allow four-unit multiplexes in residential areas and last year, made it legal to build sixplexes but only in nine wards as part of a pilot project.

“They need to go into it with eyes wide open and understand that although you’re allowed to do it, that doesn’t mean everyone wants you to do it,” he points out.

“There are other examples you can point to in life of just how that’s just the way we operate as a species, and just don’t think that just because the city said they’re allowed now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not going to try and stop you.”

Regardless of whether it is a fourplex or sixplex, once a dwelling is complete, he says it is critical that the proper due diligence must occur before any rental agreement is signed with a future tenant.

The current LTB law in Ontario, adds Sage, may be in existence to protect tenants from the “worst landlords,” but they do not take into consideration the homeowner who turns a dwelling into a multiplex.

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Any owner of a multiplex dwelling stuck with a “horrible tenant they just cannot get rid of impacts them heavily personally,” he says. “It takes a personal toll.

“If I have one ask of the province, it is to have a separate set of laws that strengthen the landlord’s ability to toss someone out if you’re also living in the home.”

Sage points out many multiplexes currently in existence in older parts of the city of Toronto go back as far as the 1930s during the Great Depression.

“By converting old Victorian homes, that was the one way that the owners could stay there. And at that time, if you had a bad tenant, you booted them out pretty much instantly, and they knew they could do it, so they were not shy about doing it.”

Despite those issues and others, Canada’s housing issue, says Sage is not “going to be solved by having our 50 largest developers build a whole bunch of more towers. It needs to come from half a million homeowners adding units.”

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