Rivière-des-Prairies occupies the northeast tip of the island of Montreal. It is one of the few parts of the city where people still routinely buy a single-family home with a lot and a parking space.
A housing stock unlike the rest of the island
According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census, compiled by the Ville de Montréal, the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies and Pointe-aux-Trembles counted 43,780 occupied private dwellings. Single-detached houses make up 25.3% of the stock, semi-detached houses 13.8% and row houses 9.9%, against 7.1%, 3.2% and 3.2% for the Ville de Montréal as a whole. Semi-detached and row houses are therefore far more present here than elsewhere on the island.
The age of the buildings explains the rest: 12.3% of the borough’s dwellings date from 1960 or earlier, against 36.0% for the Ville de Montréal, while 29.0% were built between 1961 and 1980 and 29.3% between 1981 and 1990. The Ville de Montréal’s household and housing profile, built on the same census, places the highest concentration of single-family homes in the Rivière-des-Prairies reference neighbourhood, at 72.5% of its stock.
Price, and the gap with the island
In the second quarter of 2026, according to the community profile from Centris, the APCIQ platform, the median price of a single-family home in the borough was $583,250, on 144 sales and 31 days on market. For the island of Montreal as a whole, the same source gives $835,000 and 41 days. For condominiums: $345,000 in the borough against $483,500 for the island.
The sub-areas
The old village and boulevard Gouin Est. The Plan d’urbanisme de Montréal designates the old village core of Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rivière-des-Prairies as an ensemble to protect. This is the riverfront strip: older buildings, shoreline parks, a bike path along the rivière des Prairies. It is also where the flood zone question actually arises.
Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and the Maurice-Duplessis corridor. Boulevard Maurice-Duplessis carries the area’s shops and services, along with the Marc-Aurèle-Fortin block bounded by that boulevard, rue André-Arnoux and avenues Gilbert-Barbier and Fernand-Gauthier. Around it, streets built mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, where semi-detached and row houses dominate.
The station area, Perras and Armand-Bombardier. The central part, where the proximity of employment sectors makes it necessary to check zoning before making an offer.
Faubourg Pointe-aux-Prairies, Coulée Grou and ruisseau De Montigny. The most recent development fronts, bordering parc-nature de la Pointe-aux-Prairies and parc-nature du Ruisseau-De Montigny. The buildings are younger here and part of the area is governed by a site planning and architectural integration programme.
Getting around, in practice
There is no metro station in Rivière-des-Prairies. The heavy link is the train: Gare Rivière-des-Prairies, at 10801 boulevard Maurice-Duplessis, is served by exo line 15 Mascouche, in fare zone A, with a park-and-ride of roughly 300 spaces and a shared taxi service to Faubourg Pointe-aux-Prairies. Since January 12, 2026, its terminus is no longer Gare Centrale but Gare Côte-de-Liesse, with a direct connection to the REM: exo puts the saving at about 45 minutes toward downtown.
For buses, STM line 449 Express Rivière-des-Prairies runs down to Radisson station on the green line, and lines 48 Perras and 49 Maurice-Duplessis run west to Henri-Bourassa station on the orange line, crossing the Pie-IX corridor used by the SRB. By car, Autoroute 40 crosses the south of the borough and Autoroute 25 crosses the rivière des Prairies toward Laval over the Olivier-Charbonneau bridge, a toll crossing (Concession A25). French-language public schools fall under the Centre de services scolaire de la Pointe-de-l’Île.
Selling in Rivière-des-Prairies
The 31 days on market recorded by Centris in the second quarter of 2026, against 41 for the island, describe a market that absorbs well-prepared properties quickly, not a market that forgives an aspirational price. Your buyer is almost always comparing with Repentigny, Terrebonne or eastern Laval, at comparable size and budget. The price therefore has to rest on comparables from the same sub-area, not from the borough as a block. The comparative analysis is prepared at no charge.
Buying here: the checklist
Pyrite. The OACIQ counts cases in 91 municipalities of the Montreal region and places the east end of the island, Rivière-des-Prairies included, among the highest risk areas. In those areas, the broker must make sure the seller’s declaration addresses the issue explicitly. Given the age of the stock, this is the check most often relevant here: a pre-purchase inspection does not confirm pyrite, it reveals the signs that justify a laboratory analysis of the backfill under the slab, under the CTQ-M200 standard. The inspection checklist covers the rest.
Flood zones. The Ville de Montréal refers residents to the Government of Quebec’s mapping, whose interactive map classifies areas by four levels of intensity: low, moderate, high and very high. This new generation mapping, published progressively, determines which work is permitted. For a riverfront property, the check comes before the promise to purchase: insurance, financing and what you can do with the land all depend on it.
Lead and zoning. The Ville de Montréal targets buildings of eight dwellings or fewer built before 1970 for lead water service lines, a category less present here than elsewhere on the island. The Plan d’urbanisme de Montréal also lists several employment sectors in the borough, including Armand-Bombardier, Rodolphe-Forget and Saint-Jean-Baptiste, with residential streets along their edges: what you will be allowed to extend or convert is settled at the borough office, before the offer.
Two things to read before buying on the island: what the data says about Montreal neighbourhoods and the welcome tax calculator, since Montreal applies additional brackets on top of the provincial scale. Set your real range with the affordability calculator, place the area against the others with the real estate broker in Montreal page, then write to me through the contact form.