Renting vs buying in Côte-Saint-Luc
The largest of the enclaves, half of it apartments, and a rate that reflects having almost no commerce. Here is the arithmetic of owning here rather than renting (on this municipality's own assessment roll, the rate its council adopted and Quebec's actual closing costs) and then the part the arithmetic misses.
Calculator
The short answer
Quebec's 2026 assessment roll puts the median detached house in Côte-Saint-Luc at $1,042,100, valued against market conditions on 1 July 2024 and fixed until the next roll. That is a real market value rather than a formula, but it is eighteen months old, and because the municipalities in this region are on different three-year cycles, the figure here and the figure on a neighbouring municipality's page may describe two different markets. Every page in this layer says which.
The tax rate and the bill are both worth reading, and the bill is the one that arrives. Côte-Saint-Luc charges 0.76% of roll value, which on this house is $7,926 a year in municipal tax. School tax is separate, provincial and billed once a year, and is not in that figure or in the calculator below.
The welcome tax is the entry cost, and it arrives after you have moved in. Quebec's droit de mutation on this price is $13,742, charged to the buyer, but unlike a land transfer tax anywhere else in Canada it is billed by the municipality some months after closing rather than collected at it, which catches people who have already spent the cash. With the notary, the certificate of location and the inspection, closing runs to about $17,552.
One thing this calculator understates. The transfer duty modelled here is the provincial floor: 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%. Quebec lets every municipality raise the rate on any bracket above $500,000 to as much as 3%, and many in this region have. Check the municipality's own by-law before treating the closing cost here as yours, on a purchase over $500,000 it is a floor rather than an estimate.
The rent above is the region's, not this municipality's: CMHC surveys the Montreal area by zone rather than by municipality and this layer does not invent the difference. It is the asking rent: about $2,050 for a two-bedroom: rather than CMHC's survey average of about $1,200 across the whole purpose-built stock, because a mover pays the asking rent and the survey average is held down by tenancies decades old. It is the input most worth replacing with a real listing you have seen.
Your situation
Compare like for like: the rent on somewhere you would actually be willing to live, not the cheapest listing in the city. Drop the price to around $300,000 and the rent to a one-bedroom figure to compare apartments instead, and put the condo fee in under Assumptions.
20.0% down. The renter starts with this plus closing costs: $225,972: invested instead.
The single biggest lever. Buying costs a lot to enter and a lot to exit, and only time amortizes that away.
Assumptions: every one of them editable
2% is a long-run assumption rather than a measurement. Quebec's assessment rolls are triennial, so the value above will step rather than drift. The next roll will move it in one jump.
What the renter earns on the down payment they never spent. This is the comparison's hidden lever. A renter who spends it instead of investing it does far worse than this model shows.
Quebec has no cap and no free market either. The Tribunal administratif du logement publishes a calculation (a set of per-component rates applied to the building's own operating costs, municipal taxes, insurance and capital work) and an average of what that produces, 3.1% for 2026. A landlord may ask for more; a tenant may refuse and stay at the old rent, which sends the increase to the tribunal to fix. The practical effect is that sitting rents rise slowly and turnover is low, so asking rents on the open market run far above what existing tenants pay.
Roofs, furnaces, fences, hail. Averaged out it is a real cost even in the years nothing breaks.
Zero for a detached house, which is what the roll value above describes. Where there is a syndicate of co-ownership, $320 a month is a realistic figure for this region, but get the actual fee, the contingency fund and the most recent study before relying on either.
Commission and legal fees, charged against the price you eventually sell at. The owner's net worth below is after this comes off.
Net worth, side by side
The buyer's line is home value minus what is still owed minus the cost of selling, plus anything they invested in months when owning was cheaper. The renter's line is one portfolio: the down payment and closing costs they never spent, plus the monthly difference whenever renting is cheaper.
Show the year-by-year figures
| Year | Owner | Renter | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $185,623 | $283,384 | −$97,761 |
| 2 | $225,459 | $343,145 | −$117,686 |
| 3 | $266,565 | $405,352 | −$138,786 |
| 4 | $308,988 | $470,105 | −$161,117 |
| 5 | $352,775 | $537,510 | −$184,735 |
| 6 | $397,976 | $607,676 | −$209,700 |
| 7 | $444,643 | $680,717 | −$236,074 |
| 8 | $492,830 | $756,753 | −$263,923 |
| 9 | $542,593 | $835,908 | −$293,315 |
| 10 | $593,991 | $918,311 | −$324,320 |
| 11 | $647,085 | $1,004,098 | −$357,013 |
| 12 | $701,937 | $1,093,409 | −$391,472 |
| 13 | $758,613 | $1,186,391 | −$427,778 |
| 14 | $817,181 | $1,283,198 | −$466,016 |
| 15 | $877,714 | $1,383,988 | −$506,275 |
| 16 | $940,284 | $1,488,930 | −$548,646 |
| 17 | $1,004,969 | $1,598,197 | −$593,228 |
| 18 | $1,071,849 | $1,711,970 | −$640,121 |
| 19 | $1,141,008 | $1,830,439 | −$689,431 |
| 20 | $1,212,532 | $1,953,802 | −$741,269 |
| 21 | $1,286,512 | $2,082,264 | −$795,752 |
| 22 | $1,363,042 | $2,216,041 | −$852,999 |
| 23 | $1,442,219 | $2,355,358 | −$913,138 |
| 24 | $1,524,147 | $2,500,448 | −$976,301 |
| 25 | $1,608,930 | $2,651,556 | −$1,042,626 |
- The mortgage is assumed to renew at the same rate. At the end of the first term you would still owe $729,989.
- Neither household is credited with tax on their investments, and the buyer's gain on a principal residence is tax-free while the renter's portfolio may not be.
An estimate from published figures, not a lender quote.
Questions people actually ask
Is it worth buying in Côte-Saint-Luc right now?
The 2026 assessment roll puts the median detached house in Côte-Saint-Luc at $1,042,100, valued as of 1 July 2024, and a three-bedroom in this region asks roughly $2,501 a month. At 4.34% on a 25-year amortization with 20% down, the mortgage on that house is $4,540 a month; add about $661 in municipal tax and $110 in insurance and the owner's month is closer to $5,311. Montreal is the one large Canadian market where that comparison is not obviously hopeless for a buyer (the ratio of price to rent here is far friendlier than Vancouver's or Toronto's) which is why the answer turns on your own numbers rather than on a rule of thumb. The defaults above are Côte-Saint-Luc's.
How long do you have to stay for buying to beat renting in Côte-Saint-Luc?
Less time than in most of Canada, because Quebec's entry cost is moderate and its exit cost is not unusual. Getting in runs to about $17,552, of which $13,742 is the transfer duty. The droit de mutation, the "welcome tax", charged to the buyer and payable a few months after closing rather than at it, which catches people out. Getting out costs roughly 5.9% once a 5% commission, the 14.975% of GST and QST charged on that commission, and the notary are counted, about $61,408 on this house. Together that is $78,960 of friction, and at the 2% appreciation assumed here the calculator will show you where it earns itself back.
What are the closing costs on a Côte-Saint-Luc home?
Four things, and one of them is bigger than the rest put together. The transfer duty at $13,742 on this price, which the buyer pays. The notary, about $1,500, in Quebec the deed is executed before a notary, a public officer rather than either side's lawyer, and the fee covers the searches and the publication. A certificate of location, about $1,200, which is the surveyor's document a Quebec purchase actually turns on and stands where the rest of Canada buys title insurance. And an inspection at about $800, plus roughly $310 to publish the deed and the hypothec in the Registre foncier. The transfer duty modelled here is the provincial floor: 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%. Quebec lets every municipality raise the rate on any bracket above $500,000 to as much as 3%, and many in this region have. Check the municipality's own by-law before treating the closing cost here as yours, on a purchase over $500,000 it is a floor rather than an estimate.
Why is Côte-Saint-Luc's tax rate 0.76% when the bill is $7,926?
0.7606% of the value on the assessment roll, which in Quebec is a market value fixed for three years rather than an updated one, so this is a rate against a value eighteen months old rather than against today's price. It is the 2026 rate Côte-Saint-Luc's council adopted, and the 2026 roll assesses the median detached house here at $1,042,100 as of 1 July 2024, for a municipal bill of about $7,926 a year. School tax is separate and provincial. A single rate across Quebec, billed once a year by the Centre de services scolaire, and is not included in any figure on this page.
Côte-Saint-Luc is in the Montréal agglomeration. What does that change?
More than most buyers realise. Côte-Saint-Luc was merged into Montréal in 2002 and voted itself back out on 1 January 2006, and the arrangement that came out of that split divides municipal responsibilities in two. Local competences (planning, libraries, local roads, recreation, waste collection) belong to the municipality. Agglomeration competences (police, fire, water production, arterial roads, public transit, social housing) belong to a council on which Côte-Saint-Luc holds a share of the votes proportionate to nothing it controls, and which sets a levy the municipality must pay. Roughly half of what an owner here pays funds that second list. It is why the rate table across this region tracks commercial assessment rather than service levels: two municipalities with identical police and fire can charge very different rates because one has an industrial park and the other has trees.
Does Quebec have rent control?
Quebec has no cap and no free market either. The Tribunal administratif du logement publishes a calculation (a set of per-component rates applied to the building's own operating costs, municipal taxes, insurance and capital work) and an average of what that produces, 3.1% for 2026. A landlord may ask for more; a tenant may refuse and stay at the old rent, which sends the increase to the tribunal to fix. The practical effect is that sitting rents rise slowly and turnover is low, so asking rents on the open market run far above what existing tenants pay. For a buyer weighing this decision that cuts both ways: if you would be renting for several more years, your rent probably rises more slowly than the 3.1% used here, but only while you stay put, because the protection attaches to the tenancy rather than to the unit. The gap is the whole story. CMHC's October 2025 survey put the average two-bedroom across the region's purpose-built stock at about $1,200; a two-bedroom actually advertised in 2026 asks around $2,050. This calculator uses the asking figure, because a mover pays the asking figure.
How much do you need for a down payment, and what does the CMHC premium really cost here?
The floor is 5% on the first $500,000 and 10% on the balance, about $79,210 on this house, and the median detached house here is under the $1,500,000 cap above which default insurance is simply unavailable. What makes the low-down route more expensive in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada is the tax on the premium. At 10% down the CMHC premium on this house is about $29,075, capitalized into the mortgage; Quebec then charges its 9% tax on insurance premiums against it, about $2,617, and that is payable in cash at closing and cannot be added to the loan. Ontario charges 8%, and Alberta and British Columbia charge nothing at all.
Does this calculator favour renting or buying?
Neither, by construction. Both households start with exactly the same cash, and whichever of them has the cheaper month invests the difference. Most calculators credit only the renter with that, which quietly tilts every result toward renting. The buyer's net worth is shown after the cost of selling, so it is money they could actually walk away with. The mortgage compounds semi-annually, which is the Canadian convention and not the monthly one an American calculator would use.
What is this calculator not accounting for in Côte-Saint-Luc?
Four things. The roll date: the value above describes the market on 1 July 2024 and is fixed until the next roll, so it is not what the house would sell for today and comparing it with a municipality on the other three-year cycle compares two different market dates. School tax: separate, provincial, a single rate across Quebec, billed once a year, and not in any figure here. Income tax: the gain on a principal residence is exempt in Canada and the renter's portfolio is not, which is a real advantage to owning that none of this models. And the commute: 9 kilometres from Place Ville Marie in a straight line is not a travel time, and in a region organised around a river and a small number of crossings the two diverge badly: None inside the city. Côte-Saint-Luc Road buses to Villa-Maria and Snowdon. A single figure for a municipality of 37,875 people also averages over housing stock and sectors that can differ more from each other than from the next municipality. Check the actual address.
Which figures here are estimates
The assessed value, the number of houses behind it, the tax rate and its components all come from two provincial files for the 2026 roll and budget year, listed below with the date they were retrieved. These do not:
- The rent, which is the Montreal region's asking rent for a two-bedroom rather than this municipality's. CMHC surveys by zone rather than by municipality, and this layer does not invent the difference
- The one- and three-bedroom split, derived by scaling the two-bedroom by 0.82 and 1.22: the level is measured, the shape is assumed
- The transfer duty, which is modelled at the provincial floor because the rate above $500,000 is set municipally and many municipalities here have raised it
- The condominium fee at $320 a month, where there is a syndicate at all
- Home and tenant insurance, which no Quebec body publishes a tariff for
- The notary, the certificate of location and the inspection, which are planning figures rather than published tariffs
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $120 a month
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate except rent growth, which uses the Tribunal administratif du logement's own 2026 estimate
If you want the payment side on its own. The accelerated frequencies, prepayments, the CMHC premium and the 9% Quebec tax charged on it: the Côte-Saint-Luc mortgage calculator covers it. To see how Côte-Saint-Luc compares with the other twenty-seven municipalities on roll value, rate and bill, use the regional comparison; Côte-Saint-Luc is 9 km from Place Ville Marie.
Sources
- Rôles d'évaluation foncière du Québec: rôle 2026, fichiers par municipalité · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation, via Données Québec · retrieved Supports: Every property on the 2026 assessment roll of each of these municipalities, with its predominant use, its number of dwellings, its physical link and its value, The median detached one-dwelling residence in each municipality, computed identically across all twenty-eight, The market conditions date each roll was built against: 1 July 2023 for twelve of them and 1 July 2024 for sixteen
- Rapport financier des organismes municipaux: données prévisionnelles non auditées 2026, Simple occurrence · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: The 2026 residential property tax rate adopted by each municipality, in dollars per $100 of assessment, Special rates for debt service, operating and investment activities where a municipality levies them, under the taux-unique code as well as the taux-variés résiduelle one, The 2026 decree population of each municipality, The adopted-rate file itself rather than the dataset page that lists it, so the next reconciliation is a fetch rather than a search
- Données prévisionnelles non auditées 2026: description des postes · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: Which code carries which adopted rate: general CPALB01724 taux unique or CPALB01726 taux variés résiduelle, debt CPALB01736 or CPALB01738, operating CPALB01747 or CPALB01749, investment CPALB01758 or CPALB01760, That a special rate adopted at a single rate is recorded under a different code from one adopted per property class, which is the distinction this layer reads both halves of
- Comment sont calculés les droits sur les mutations immobilières · Ville de Montréal · retrieved Supports: Montreal's own 2026 transfer duty table, from 0.5% to 4% across seven brackets, The bracket thresholds of $62,900, $315,000, $552,300, $1,104,700, $2,136,500 and $3,113,000
- Rental Market Survey, Montréal CMA: October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: An average two-bedroom rent of about $1,200 across the purpose-built stock of the Montreal CMA, A vacancy rate of 2.9%, Survey zones that do not correspond to municipal boundaries, which is why this layer carries one regional figure rather than twenty-eight
- Réorganisation municipale: les municipalités reconstituées et le conseil d'agglomération · Gouvernement du Québec, Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: The reconstitution of fifteen municipalities on the island of Montreal and four in the Longueuil agglomeration on 1 January 2006, The division between local competences and agglomeration competences. Police, fire, water production, arterial roads and public transit, The agglomeration council's power to set the levy that funds them
- Interest rates charged for new and existing lending by chartered banks · Bank of Canada · retrieved Supports: The default mortgage rate of 4.34%, uninsured five-year-plus fixed, funds advanced
- Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, which only three of these twenty-eight municipalities' median detached houses exceed, 30-year insured amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
- Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages · Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions · retrieved Supports: The qualifying rate of the contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%
- Droits sur les mutations immobilières · Gouvernement du Québec, Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: The 2026 indexed brackets of $62,900 and $315,000 at 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%, A municipality's power to raise the rate on any bracket above $500,000, to a ceiling of 3%, Montreal's separate authority to exceed that ceiling, The basis of imposition being the greatest of price, assessed value and agreed value
- Fixation de loyer: estimation moyenne des augmentations 2026 · Tribunal administratif du logement · retrieved Supports: An average estimated increase of 3.1% for 2026, The per-component calculation the tribunal applies rather than a percentage cap, A tenant's right to refuse an increase and remain in the dwelling at the former rent
- Tax on insurance premiums · Revenu Québec · retrieved Supports: A 9% tax on insurance premiums, which reaches the mortgage default insurance premium
- Financial assistance for home purchase · Ville de Montréal · retrieved Supports: Montreal's municipal home purchase assistance, which is the closest thing Quebec has to a first-time buyer rebate
These are estimates built from published figures, not a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice. Rates, premiums and provincial rules change; confirm anything you plan to act on with a mortgage professional and read the sourcing methodology.