The 5 Things Your Home Needs to Have Before You Suite It

You have thought about if a secondary suite is right for you and decided that you want to take the plunge, Congratulations! There are lots of great houses on the market, but not all of them will be great for adding a legal suite. You can of course look to buy a home that already has a suite in it, but most of these are not legal, and if you get reported by neighbours or tenants the city can shut you down. And those that are already legal can have a high price tag.

There are many homes that have the potential to become great income properties, and all it takes is a bit of research and a good eye to see a diamond in the rough. As you look for your perfect investment property or “house hack”, keep the following criteria in mind to make sure you set yourself up for success.

1. Your House is Properly Zoned for a Suite

Related: The Top 3 Requirements for Adding a Legal Basement Suite to Your Home (Calgary Edition)

In each city zoning regulations are a little bit different. Cities like Edmonton have it the simplest, where any residential property can contain a secondary suite. Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto however need to be zoned in a specific sub-zone (ex; R1, RT-1) that allows for multi-family dwellings. The best thing you can do is search your cities website, or call their number to get the zoning criteria.

Knowing the proper zoning criteria can help you filter your searches for houses that fit within your cities guidelines. Many realtors have programs that will only show you houses with the proper zoning. You can also check websites like mls.ca to look for homes on your own in areas that you know have the right zoning.

If you are currently living in a home that you would like to suite but it is not zoned properly then all is still not lost. You can always apply for an exception through your city council. A lot of times this also involves connecting with your neighbours to get their approval of having a suite.

Some neighbours might not like the idea of having multifamily homes in their neighbourhoods. The Calgary Journal did some research on secondary suites that were appealed, and found that the top two reasons for neighbours appealing had to do with privacy concerns, and benchmark number 2…

2. Have Plenty of Parking

When you are looking to buy a home with a suite, parking is something that you need to take very seriously. We recommend making sure that there is at least parking available for 4 vehicles around or within your property lines. An example of this could be a lane home that has a parking pad on the back of the house that can house 2 cars, and street parking at the front of the house. Or a corner lot with a front facing garage and parking on the side of the house.

Parking is a really big deal, and if you want to keep your tenants and neighbours happy then make sure that the home that you buy has plenty of parking spaces. If the house you are looking at does not seem to have many parking spots then it is not a home worth purchasing, even if it has the proper zoning.

3. Needs a Separate Entrance

Related: Top 3 Entrance Options for Legal Secondary Suites

When looking for a home to add a suite into, having separate entrances are one of the simplest ways to decide if a house is worth viewing or not. Houses with walkout basement entrances are ideal, or homes that have a door that leads directly to stairs that take you to the basement work too.

That is not to say that having a single entrance never works however. If the entrance to a home can be separated into a common space with an inside door leading to the upstairs and another door leading to the suite downstairs then this could also work for you. However, if the only way to get to the basement is through stairs in the middle of the house then adding a basement suite is usually not worth doing.

You always can core out a door on the side of a house, but the costs of doing so are pretty high, and I would not recommend doing this on your first investment home.

4. Has Big Enough Windows in Basement Bedrooms

This is not just about providing natural light into a home. Safety is the name of the game when looking at windows. The main reason why there are so many regulations to follow is because Cities want to make sure that the places that people live in are safe. If a fire were to break out in the basement and a tenant was trapped in their room how would they get out? The windows of a bedroom have to be large enough for an adult to escape from.

Those regulations vary by small amounts from city to city, but a general rule of thumb is about 4 square feet or larger. If you look at a window and think “I can’t get out of that” then it is probably too small. Making windows larger is also an option, and it costs less than a door, but you may have to add window wells if you need to dig deeper.

5. The Mechanical Room is Accessible

This is actually less of an issue now in some major cities like Calgary, but in quite a few cities through out Canada your mechanical room (or at least the electrical panel) needs to be accessible for both upstairs and downstairs tenants. That means that if your mechanical room is located in an area in your basement that can not be easily turned into a common space then you will have to get it moved to a space that can be. This can be an absolute deal breaker for many homes.

Fortunately these rules seem to be changing. In Calgary, for example, so long as the basement suite tenant, and landlord, can access the mechanical room, all that you need to do is add a clause in your contract saying that you will access the mechanical room within 24 hours if requested by the upstairs tenant. This means that if a power breaker flips, your upstairs tenant needs to contact you or the basement tenant, and it has to be fixed by the next day. Inconvenient for the upstairs tenant, yes. But this change alone has meant that so many more homes have the potential to now be suited. This is amazing news for real estate investors, and a small price to pay in the long run if it means more legal suites in a growing city.

If you are unsure what the rules are for your city, the best thing to do is give the building and development department a call. They normally do not have this information readily available online.

To Sum it Up

Zoning, parking, entrances, windows, and mechanical rooms. This could sound like a big and scary list to remember as you are looking to find the right home to suite. It takes some pre-work to find the perfect home, but if you take the time to make sure your house can meet these requirements then you will have a more enjoyable suiting process.

Stick with Second-Suite to learn even more about suiting your homes, and as always feel free to share your stories in the comments bellow.

Related: Legal Basement Suites: Calgary – The First 4 Steps