Comox Valley & Campbell River Homes with Suites for Sale

Houses with an existing or potential suite in Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland and Campbell River, where newer zoning allows suites, detached units and up to four homes on most residential lots.

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Houses with Suites in the Comox Valley and Campbell River

Browse Comox Valley homes with suites for sale: houses whose listing reports an existing suite or the potential for one, from basement suites in older Courtenay and Campbell River houses to suites built into newer homes on the east side of Courtenay and in-law homes on rural acreage in Merville and Black Creek.

Rental demand has deep roots here. North Island College has campuses in Courtenay and Campbell River, 19 Wing Comox brings a steady turnover of military families to the valley, and the North Island Hospital campuses employ staff in both cities, which gives suite owners a broad pool of tenants.

The rules have changed too. BC's small-scale multi-unit housing legislation led Courtenay, Comox and Campbell River to allow three or four units on most residential lots, and Cumberland's new zoning bylaw does the same, so a house with suite potential may also have room for a detached unit.

Compare every property type in the Comox Valley and Campbell River real estate search, or see every detached home on the Comox Valley houses for sale page.

Comox Valley Homes with Suites for Sale

This page shows every house in the Comox Valley and Campbell River listed through the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board with an existing suite or suite potential. The listing flag does not confirm that a suite was built with a permit or meets the BC Building Code, so ask for the permit record and treat an unpermitted suite as potential rather than income.

The Vancouver Island homes with suites page explains suites, detached units and BC's housing legislation across the Island. Below are the rules and the suite market in each community.

Reading Suite Potential

In this area, suite potential most often means a daylight or walk-out basement with room for a separate entrance, a large split-level with a lower floor, or, on a bigger lot, space for a detached unit. Check ceiling height, bedroom windows large enough for escape, fire separation between units, and whether the electrical service and plumbing can carry a second kitchen before you price the work.

Financing follows the paperwork. Lenders may count part of the rent from a legal, permitted suite when you qualify for a mortgage, but they rarely give credit for an unpermitted one, and an insurer may treat an undeclared suite as a reason to deny a claim.

Courtenay Homes with Suites

In June 2024 Courtenay adopted a Residential Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (R-SSMUH) zone that replaced 16 older residential zones and now covers most of the city's single-family and duplex lots. It allows up to four housing units per lot, which can include a secondary suite inside the house and detached accessory dwellings, subject to setbacks, lot coverage and servicing. Lot size still decides what fits: a narrow lot near downtown may hold a house and a suite, while a wider east-side lot may also take a detached unit, so check the City's zoning map and any development permit area before planning a build.

Suite homes turn up across the city: basement suites in the older neighbourhoods west of the river and around downtown, and newer houses on the east side built with a suite from the start, close to North Island College, the hospital and the Ryan Road shopping. Courtenay is also where tenants without a car have the most bus service and shops within walking distance.

Comox Homes with Suites

Comox rezoned most residential properties for small-scale multi-unit housing in June 2024 and has since refined its zoning. On lots with both town water and sewer, up to three units are allowed on lots of 280 square metres or less and up to four on lots up to 4,050 square metres. Lots with only one of those services, or neither, are held to two units, and the largest lots allow a house plus a suite or a coach house.

A secondary suite must sit within the house and cannot be stratified or sold separately. Coach houses are capped at 100 square metres of floor area and are not allowed in the Kye Bay coach-house restriction area; a one-storey coach house can be 5.5 metres tall with a 1.5-metre rear setback, and a two-storey one 7.5 metres with a 4-metre rear setback. Low-density lots need one parking space per unit, tandem spaces do not count, and a second driveway needs a variance. Postings to 19 Wing Comox add to rental demand on the peninsula, and family homes with a ground-level suite suit both owners and tenants there.

Cumberland Homes with Suites

Cumberland adopted a new zoning bylaw, Zoning Bylaw No. 1238, in February 2026. It pre-zones most single-residential lots for up to four units, so an owner can go straight to a building permit to add housing without first applying to rezone. The same rule applies next door, so expect more change on a typical village street than in the past.

Cumberland is the smallest of the four municipalities, and its housing is mostly detached homes close to the village centre on Dunsmuir Avenue and the trail network around it. With few apartment buildings in the village, a suite or a second unit on a house lot is one of the main ways new rental housing gets built.

Campbell River Homes with Suites

Campbell River replaced most of its older single-family and duplex zones with a Residential Infill (R-I) zone in 2024. The R-I zone allows three to four dwelling units per lot, with a 350-square-metre minimum lot size, 50% lot coverage, a height limit of 10 metres or three storeys, and one parking stall for each unit.

Secondary suites are also permitted in the city's multi-family, rural and several comprehensive development zones, and the provincial rules required the city to allow a suite or an additional dwelling in its large-lot and rural zones as well. A building permit is needed both to build a suite and to legalize an existing one, and the city has offered grants and fee waivers to encourage them. Houses with walk-out basements on the sloping streets above Discovery Passage lend themselves to suites, as do older bungalows in central Campbell River and Willow Point. North Island College's Campbell River campus and the hospital add tenants close to the central neighbourhoods.

Rural Comox Valley, Quadra and the Islands

BC's housing legislation requires every regional district to allow a secondary suite or an accessory dwelling unit in single-family zones, so rural lots in Royston, Union Bay, Merville, Black Creek and on Quadra Island can usually add one unit, subject to water supply and septic capacity. A new or larger onsite septic system must be designed by an authorized practitioner and filed with Island Health, so the cost of a second household on a rural lot often starts underground. The Comox Valley Regional District publishes pre-approved plans for secondary dwellings, and its zoning bylaw defines a carriage house as a two-storey building with up to 90 square metres of living space on the upper floor.

On Agricultural Land Reserve parcels, an additional residence must also meet Agricultural Land Commission rules on size and use. Denman and Hornby islands are exempt from the provincial rules because they are in the Islands Trust, and suites and cottages there follow each island's own land-use bylaw.

Short-Term Rentals and Suites

The Province's short-term rental principal residence requirement applies in Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland and Campbell River. A host can rent out their own home and one secondary suite or accessory dwelling on the same property for short stays, but not a separate investment house, and local bylaws can be stricter. Communities can opt in or out each year, so check the current list before buying for short-term income. A bed and breakfast is allowed where the owner lives on the property and the guest room has no cooking facilities, subject to local zoning and licensing.

Campbell River's zoning does not provide for short-term rentals, apart from licensed bed and breakfasts, so suite income there means long-term tenants. Each step of buying in BC, from offer to completion, is in the home buying guide.

Search Comox Valley & Campbell River Homes with Suites MLS® Listings

Use the listings and map at the top of this page to compare Comox Valley homes with suites for sale, existing and potential, across Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, Campbell River and the rural communities, or return to the Comox Valley and Campbell River MLS® listings for every property type. Asking prices and market times are tracked in the Comox Valley and Campbell River Homes with Suites Market Report.

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Hero photo: Comox from the air by Guinness323, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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