Commercial property management in Burnaby for private owners

Burnaby has one of the largest industrial inventories in Metro Vancouver, and a surprising amount of it is held by private owners and small stratas rather than institutions — much of Big Bend, Lake City and Glenlyon was built as strata and small freehold in the 1980s and 1990s, and a lot of that stock is still in the original families' hands. It shows in our feed: 50 of 53 live Burnaby listings were posted by the owner, not a brokerage. Those owners are who this page is for.

We handle the whole cycle: rate opinion from live comparables, listing, showings, tenant screening, offer to lease and lease negotiation under the Commercial Tenancy Act, then collection, CAM and tax reconciliation, maintenance, renewals and expiry planning. For a strata unit we also deal with the strata corporation's rules on use, signage and loading, which in Burnaby's older business parks are often stricter than the zoning. Sale-versus-hold advice is part of the package; sale advisory is executed by Lawrence Siccia (Engel & Völkers). The full scope is on our commercial leasing services page.

Burnaby's advantage is that it has every product type in one city. Metrotown and Brentwood are the office and retail towers; Big Bend and Lake City are the warehouses; Edmonds and Lougheed are the corridors in between. An owner with a Kingsway retail unit and a Byrne Road warehouse is dealing with two tenant pools, two rate logics and one municipality — which is easier than it sounds if someone is watching both.

Burnaby's industrial zoning is the M series — M1 through M5 and their variants — and the distinction that matters to owners is what accessory uses each allows. Most M zones permit an accessory office, limited retail of goods produced or serviced on site, and a caretaker residential unit attached to the industrial use. That caretaker suite is the Burnaby version of live/work: it is accessory, it is tied to the business on site, and it is not a standalone apartment you can rent to a third party. Owners who have inherited a warehouse with a suite upstairs need to know which side of that line the current use sits on. Our live/work zoning guide explains how Burnaby's approach differs from North Vancouver's and Vancouver's.

Burnaby has been rewriting the zoning bylaw it has used since 1965, so the schedule your building was built under and the schedule in force today may not read the same. Legal non-conforming use protects an existing tenant, not a new one, and a vacancy can end the protection. We read the current bylaw and the strata bylaws before we list a use, because a tenant who signs for a use that is not permitted is a lease you will be unwinding.

Town-centre areas — Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed, Edmonds — are governed by community plans and comprehensive development (CD) zones written per site. A retail unit in a tower podium is CD-zoned with its own use list and often a strata-corporation layer on top. Signage, patio, hours and loading are all in the documents, and a good lease references them rather than promising the tenant something the strata can veto.

Burnaby is the most SkyTrain-connected city in the region after Vancouver: the Expo Line runs Patterson–Metrotown–Royal Oak–Edmonds through the south, the Millennium Line runs Gilmore–Brentwood–Holdom–Sperling–Lake City–Production Way through the north, and the two meet at Lougheed. Office and retail within about 500 metres of a station lease at a premium and to a different tenant — one hiring staff who do not drive. Outside that radius, the parking ratio is the number tenants ask for first.

Industrial tenants price roads, not trains. Big Bend works off Marine Way to Knight Street and the Queensborough Bridge; Lake City and the Lougheed corridor work off Highway 1 at Gaglardi and Willingdon; Edmonds sits between Kingsway and the New Westminster crossings. Truck routes and the weight limits on Burnaby's designated network decide which buildings a distribution tenant can use, so we put the truck-route map next to the floor plan in every industrial listing.

In Metro Vancouver, commercial property management fees typically run 3–8% of gross collected rent (published rate cards from Metro Vancouver managers, 2025–26), and leasing commissions are commonly 4–6% of the total lease value or roughly one month's rent per year of term. David's leasing fee is typically the first and last months' rent on the lease, and ongoing management is quoted per property. The full breakdown, including what is and is not in a management fee, is on our commercial property management fees page.

Burnaby has one of the largest business tax bases in the region, and its Class 6 rate is set separately from Vancouver's — check the current mill rate on the City's tax page each spring, because in a net lease it goes straight to the tenant as additional rent. Strata industrial adds strata fees and the occasional special levy; a triple-net lease can pass fees through, but a levy for a new roof usually stays with the owner unless the lease is explicit. Budget for that before you price the base rent. Our industrial property management and office building management pages cover the strata items in detail.

Two tax points that apply in every BC municipality: GST applies to commercial rent and BC PST does not, and property tax is billed on the BC Assessment value at the municipality's Class 6 (business) rate — check the current mill rate each spring, because most net leases pass it straight through to the tenant as additional rent. Confirm the treatment for your ownership structure with your accountant.

The planning ranges we use across Metro Vancouver: small industrial and warehouse units are usually the fastest to lease, office and retail take longer because the tenant pool is thinner and fit-out matters more, and every deal adds a fixturing period before rent starts. Lease terms in the region are commonly 3–5 years with a 5-year renewal option, so the decisions you make at signing carry for most of a decade. These are planning assumptions, not promises — the honest answer for a specific building comes after we have seen it.

Burnaby industrial with functional loading leases quickly — Metro Vancouver industrial availability is around 3–4% (brokerage market reports, 2025) and Big Bend is one of the tightest pockets. Small strata office in Metrotown and Brentwood is the opposite: there is a lot of it, tenants shop by station and price, and a unit that is not competitively priced sits. Retail in the town centres depends on the specific frontage and can take a season to find the right operator.

If a lease is ending in the next 12–18 months, start with the lease expiry playbook and the lease expiry planner; if the unit is already empty, the how to find a commercial tenant guide is the step-by-step version of what we do.