Laval is no longer the bedroom suburb of years past. All of Île Jésus has densified: the arrival of the metro's orange line in 2007, with the Cartier, De la Concorde and Montmorency stations, brought the city closer to downtown Montreal; Collège Montmorency and the university campus brought in thousands of students and workers; and entire families left the island of Montreal to find, in Laval, a plex with land, parking and space. Rental demand is steady, new condos near the metro rent at top prices — and yet a large part of the existing stock has stayed frozen in time.
The reason is almost always the same. In Laval, a good share of the duplexes, triplexes and small income properties belong to owner-occupants — the owner lives in one unit and rents out the others — or to small investors who own one or two buildings. These are people who know their tenants, who value stability, and who, year after year, have simply never readjusted the rents. A good tenant who's paid on time for ten years in Pont-Viau or Laval-des-Rapides — you don't touch that. It's human, it's understandable — but it quietly widens the gap.
The result: on the same block, a new unit near the Montmorency metro rents at market price while the neighbour next door, on a long-standing lease, still pays the rate from several years ago. It's not rare to see a large family 5½ in Chomedey or Vimont rented hundreds of dollars below what a tenant would pay today for the unit across the street. Multiplied across a building's units, the gap becomes enormous — and it earns nothing as long as it stays dormant.
That's exactly where the value hides. Laval units are often larger, better maintained and better located than people think: proximity to the metro, the highways and the schools has real rental value. The catch-up potential is very real — you just need to quantify it unit by unit, then go after it cleanly, without conflict and in compliance with the TAL.
