Understand Burnaby before you commit to an address
Burnaby is the eastern half of the Burrard Peninsula and the third-largest city in British Columbia, built as four dense town centres (Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed and Edmonds) with single-family neighbourhoods and a great deal of park between them. It is the only municipality here that has genuinely delivered on the regional growth strategy's premise: put the towers on the SkyTrain and leave the rest alone. Figures come from one provincial table measured the same way in all 20 municipalities here.
The cost of living in Burnaby, and what a home costs
Two calculators on British Columbia's own rules: semi-annual compounding and the real minimum down payment tiers, and the closing costs this province actually charges.
Rent or buy in Burnaby
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. Both households start with the same cash, so the comparison is not rigged either way.
Mortgage calculator
Semi-annual compounding, the CMHC premium under twenty percent down, and the price cap that puts most of this region beyond an insured mortgage.
Then work out whether Burnaby is the right part of the region
No neighbourhood guides for Burnaby yet. What is here instead is the whole regional district on one comparable footing.
All 20 municipalities around Vancouver
Every municipality side by side on assessed value, the rate charged on it, and the bill that arrives, which does not rank the way the rate does.
Compare the regionVancouver, local area by local area
Twenty-two sourced guides to the city at the middle of all this, by its own official local areas.
Browse the city guidesWhat buying in Burnaby actually involves
Burnaby's number worth knowing is not the tax rate, which is unremarkable, but the user fees. The province's own schedule puts water, sewer and solid waste on a representative Burnaby house at $921 a year. The lowest of the twenty municipalities around Vancouver, against $4,695 in New Westminster and $2,540 in Vancouver itself. On the full annual bill that is worth more than a tenth of a percentage point of tax rate, and it is the line nobody compares because it is not on the tax notice people quote at each other.
The trade is that Burnaby is a city of two housing markets that share a name. Metrotown and Brentwood are among the densest concentrations of new concrete apartments in Canada and price like it; the single-family areas on Capitol Hill, Deer Lake and Burnaby Mountain are among the most expensive detached houses outside the North Shore. The representative house the figures below describe is the second market, and if you are shopping the first one the numbers on this page describe your neighbours rather than you.
Two university campuses and a large industrial base along the Fraser give this city an economy of its own, which is unusual for a suburb of this size and is part of why demand here does not track downtown Vancouver's office market the way its neighbours' does.
The tower pipeline at Metrotown, Brentwood and Lougheed is among the largest in the region and it is not finished. For a condominium purchase near any of those centres, how many units are still to complete within a few blocks matters more to resale than the building's own finishes do.
Moving to Burnaby: check these before you commit
- Which town centre you are actually near, because Burnaby is not walkable between them and the SkyTrain is the only fast link.
- Whether the building is in a tenant-protection area. Burnaby's rental replacement policy is the strongest in the region and it shapes what gets redeveloped and when.
- If it is a detached house: whether the lot is in one of the small-scale multi-unit zones the province's 2023 legislation opened up, which changes both the value and the neighbours.
- How many units are approved or under construction within a few blocks of a town centre address.
- The depreciation report and contingency fund for any strata, particularly on 1990s wood-frame stock.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Burnaby figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Burnaby figures come from
- Schedule 704: Taxes and Charges on a Representative House, 2026 · Province of British Columbia, Ministry of Municipal Affairs · retrieved Supports: The assessed value of a representative single-family house in every British Columbia municipality, as valued by BC Assessment on 1 July 2025, School, general municipal, regional district and BC Assessment/MFA levies on that house, from which the total residential rate is computed, Parcel taxes and user fees per municipality: $1,459 a year in Port Coquitlam against $4,776 in Lions Bay
- Additional school tax rate · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: 0.2% on the residential value between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 and 0.4% above it for the 2026 tax year, Budget 2026's increase to 0.3% and 0.6% effective for the 2027 and subsequent tax years
- Metro Vancouver Rent Report, June 2026: averages by municipality · liv.rent · retrieved Supports: Average asking rent for unfurnished units by municipality, for the nine municipalities the publisher reports by name, A Metro Vancouver average of $2,090 for a one-bedroom and $2,750 for a two-bedroom in June 2026, Year-over-year declines in unfurnished one-bedroom rent across every municipality reported
- Metro Vancouver home sales lose brief momentum: July 2026 statistics · Greater Vancouver REALTORS® · retrieved Supports: An MLS® HPI composite benchmark of $1,088,800 across the board area in July 2026, down 6.2% year over year, The market-wide series these pages are careful not to confuse with an assessment roll value
- 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 more than half these municipalities' representative houses now exceed, 30-year insured amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
- Property transfer tax · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: Transfer tax brackets, First-time buyer and new build exemptions