Port Coquitlam Mortgage Broker

Working with me in Port Coquitlam

In Port Coquitlam it can go any way you prefer — in person, video, or phone.

Documents can still go digital if that is easier, or we meet wherever suits you.

Port Coquitlam, specifically

Port Coquitlam — the City itself often shortens it to PoCo — counted 61,498 residents in the 2021 Census, up 4.9% from 2016, and Metro Vancouver, using Statistics Canada estimates, puts it at 69,371 in 2024. It's a separate city from Coquitlam, incorporated on March 7, 1913, with 29.16 square kilometres of land, and 77% of its households owned their homes in 2021. The City describes an authentic historic downtown core and small-town charm, and the 25-kilometre Traboulay PoCo Trail loops around the whole community for walkers, cyclists, skaters and even riders on horseback.

My mortgage and real estate licences both cover all of BC, so for a home in Port Coquitlam you can come to me for the mortgage and for buying or selling.

Before you buy in Port Coquitlam: floodplain, coach house rules, suite utility bills and transit areas

About 45% of Port Coquitlam lies in the floodplain of the Pitt, Fraser and Coquitlam rivers — two flood zones, Fraser/Pitt and Coquitlam River — protected by dikes and pump stations, and the zoning bylaw has a flood plain section that points to Flood Construction Level plans in its schedule. One rule that's easy to miss: the Official Community Plan makes all land within 50 metres of a watercourse a development permit area, and watercourses include ponds and creeks and also ditches, so building or clearing there needs a permit first.

Single-family zones are now called RS1 to RS4 (Residential Small-Scale): up to three units on lots of 280 m² or less, up to four on lots from 280 m² to 4,050 m², and within 400 metres of frequent bus service a triplex with suites for up to six. The allowed combination is a house or duplex, a secondary suite inside it, and — only on a lot with a single house — a coach house. Coach houses are capped at 90 m², can be rented, can't contain a suite and can't be strata-subdivided, and the development permit fee is $1,100. New duplexes, projects of three or more units and coach houses all need a small-scale multi-unit housing development permit before a building permit, and RS lots inside a Transit-Oriented Area aren't eligible for these units.

If a house has a secondary suite, the City bills water, sewer, garbage and recycling for both the main home and the suite; for 2026 the suite's share is $964. A suite that doesn't exist, stays empty all year or houses a caregiver providing extensive physical assistance can be fully exempt, and a suite occupied by a parent or grandparent while the owner lives in the main home gets a 50% reduction ($482). The exemption has to be applied for every year by December 31, or it's denied.

Port Coquitlam has three Transit-Oriented Areas: land next to the Coquitlam Central and Lincoln SkyTrain stations, and around the West Coast Express station downtown. Around Port Coquitlam Station, the City must allow at least a 4.0 floor area ratio and 12 storeys within 200 metres, and 3.0 and 8 storeys from 200 to 400 metres, and it can't require residential parking there. The Province's Housing Target Order, issued August 1, 2024, calls for 2,279 net new homes by July 31, 2029. Short-term rentals are allowed only in A and RS zones, in the licensed operator's principal residence — at most two bedrooms without cooking facilities and four guests, and never on a lot with more than two homes.

Common questions