How to Choose an Investment Property Broker in Dollard-des-Ormeaux

A buyer weighing a triplex in Dollard-des-Ormeaux faces a question the single-family buyer never has to ask: does this building work as a home, as an income stream, or as both at once? The answer decides which broker can genuinely help. A generalist who reads square footage and pulls comparable sales is answering half of it.

Across the Montreal region, plexes and condominiums spent the first half of 2026 pulling in opposite directions. That divergence is worth understanding before an investment buyer signs a brokerage contract with anyone.

Plexes and condos are telling opposite stories

In the second quarter of 2026, the median plex of two to five units across the Montreal census metropolitan area sold for $874,000, up 5% from a year earlier. Over the same three months the median condominium sold for $430,000, a gain of only 1%. Single-family homes landed between them at $645,000, up 3%.

Price is one signal. Speed is the other. Plexes changed hands in an average of 43 days, six days faster than a year earlier. Condominiums took 48 days, six days slower. Same region, same quarter, opposite momentum.

A property type that is getting pricier and selling faster at the same time is a property type buyers are competing for.

For someone shopping income buildings on the West Island, that competition is the backdrop to every offer. It also raises the cost of hiring a broker who cannot read a building as an investment.

An income property is two decisions at one address

The home question is familiar territory: layout, condition, the street it sits on. The income question is where most of the money hides, and it is the part a square-footage tour never reaches.

A cap rate tells a buyer what annual return the building's net income represents against its price. A rent roll shows what each unit currently pays, how far those rents sit below what the units could command, and whether a lease is about to expire. A broker who can walk through both is describing the asset the buyer is actually purchasing. One who stops at finishes and comparable prices is describing the wrapper around it.

Renovation awareness belongs in the same conversation. A plex that photographs well can still carry a decade of deferred work behind the walls, and the gap between the asking price and the true entry cost is often measured in roofs, wiring and unit turnovers rather than staging.

The questions that separate a generalist from an income broker

Two questions do most of the sorting. Ask to see comparable cap rates for buildings of this type in this part of the West Island. Then ask what recent renovation costs have run for plexes of this age in the borough. Both are answerable by a broker who works with income property, and both tend to draw a vague reply from one who does not.

Aguinaga has led more than 50 renovations and developed a nine-unit building from the ground up, which is the kind of background that puts real figures behind a renovation estimate rather than a shrug. A buyer does not need a broker who has personally done the work, but a broker who can price it is worth more at the negotiating table than one who treats every building as a set of rooms.

Tenancy rules round out the list. In Quebec, an existing lease follows the building to its new owner, and the Tribunal administratif du logement sets the terms under which rents can rise. A broker who understands those limits can tell a buyer which of a listing's projected rents are realistic and which are wishful.

Reading the wider market before an offer

The rebalancing under way gives an investment buyer some room. Active listings averaged 20,735 across the region in the second quarter of 2026, up 14% from a year earlier, so there is more to choose from than there was. Residential transactions fell 7% over the same period to 13,365, and condominium sales dropped 10% while plex sales eased 5%.

Borrowing costs sit lower than they did through the tighter years. The Bank of Canada's policy rate stood at 2.25% in August 2026. Construction costs remain elevated, with Statistics Canada's New Housing Price Index for the Montreal region at 159.4 in April 2026 against a 2016 base of 100, which is part of why building anything new rarely undercuts buying an existing plex.

Signing with the right agency

An investment purchase in Dollard-des-Ormeaux carries two decisions inside one signature, the home and the income, and the agency worth signing with is the one that can hold both in view. The filter is simple enough to apply on a first call. Ask about cap rates, ask about rent rolls, and listen for whether the answers come with numbers or with adjectives.

LJ Aguinaga is a licensed real estate broker in Montreal and the owner of LJ Realties.