If your laptop sets up on the kitchen table every morning, a new semi-detached home near Montreal can give you what many apartments lack: a room devoted to work, with a door you can close at the end of the day. This article looks at what a house with a home office near Montreal is worth when you work from home part of the week, and what it means on the other days.

The data comes from the 2021 Census and Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey; the spaces described are those of BÉAcité's models and homes in Sainte-Julie, as shown in the plans and photos.

Working from home: a trend that lasts

In May 2021, at census time and in the middle of the pandemic, 30.3% of employed people in the City of Montreal worked from home, compared with 21.9% for Quebec as a whole and 23.6% in Sainte-Julie. The practice has eased since, without disappearing:

in May 2024, 20.6% of workers in the Montreal metropolitan area worked mainly from home, according to Statistics Canada, compared with 18.7% across Canada;
in May 2025, the share was around 19.6%, and the average commute in the area took 29.0 minutes.

These figures cover the whole metropolitan area, Sainte-Julie included, and the trend has been downward since 2021. They don't describe every job; they show that part of the workforce still organizes its week around home.

Few spare rooms in the city

Working from home takes space, and that's what the island most often lacks. The average dwelling in the City of Montreal has 4.5 rooms, and one in three (33.5%) has no bedroom or just one. In those conditions, the office shares space with the bedroom, the living room or the dining room, and calls get taken wherever a quiet corner remains. In Sainte-Julie, the average dwelling has 7.1 rooms. Under the national occupancy standard, which only counts bedrooms, 8.6% of Montreal households already live in housing that isn't suitable in size, before they even look for a spot for a desk. That lack of room is often what sends people looking for a house with a home office near Montreal.

A house with a home office near Montreal: what spaces does BÉAcité offer?

BÉAcité's homes offer several ways to set up a workspace:

in the home at 423 Geoffrion Street, an open office was designed for working from home, and the same house has a custom wine cellar and a finished basement;
the 338 sq ft mezzanine, an option in the Duo cottage, raises the living space from 2,018 to 2,356 sq ft;
at 405 Geoffrion Street, the photos show a mezzanine set up as an office nook under a high ceiling;
at 408, the photos show a closed office behind a glass door, with built-in bookshelves;
at 435, a bright office with an olive-green wall, and a work corner upstairs next to the residential elevator.

For a home that's still customizable, tell the sales director, Eddy Guessous, that you need an office: he'll explain what each model allows. Several customizable homes can be ready in about four months.

Light and comfort for long workdays

A home office is also judged by how it feels. At BÉAcité, large windows light every room, and the ground floor has 9-foot ceilings. Central air helps you keep a cool head on hot days, and gas-fired forced-air central heating takes over in winter. The basement, 858 sq ft in the Duo cottage, 1,006 sq ft in the bungalow and 652 sq ft in the Urbain model, also offers space set apart from the living areas; the one at 423 is finished.

Days at the office

Working from home also means heading into the office now and then. From Geoffrion Street, Place Ville Marie is about 34 minutes away without traffic via the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Several options are open to you on those days:

carpooling: with three or more people, you can use the reserved lane on Highway 20 toward Montreal between Chemin du Fer-à-Cheval in Sainte-Julie and Route 132 in Boucherville, while the bridge-tunnel work lasts;
exo's express 520, on weekdays, from Terminus Sainte-Julie to Radisson metro in 23 to 28 minutes, free until the major restrictions end; from Radisson, the green line reaches McGill in 18 to 22 minutes;
route 350 to Longueuil metro, then the yellow line to Berri-UQAM, 6 or 7 minutes away;
Sainte-Julie's park-and-ride lot on Boulevard Armand-Frappier, at exit 102 of Highway 20;
the train: Sainte-Julie has no station, but McMasterville's, about 12 minutes away by car, is served on weekdays by exo's line 13, which reaches Central Station in 41 to 45 minutes; no bus links it to Geoffrion Street.

Apart from the 520, travelling between the island and Sainte-Julie requires an All modes ABC fare, sold as a single trip, a 10-trip pack or a monthly pass. If you only go to the office a few days a week, compare these options on the ARTM website before you choose.

The Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel remains under repair until 2027, with lane closures that change from one phase of the work to the next. On the way home, from Terminus Sainte-Julie, the T34 taxibus, on reservation and on weekdays, drops you 91 m from Geoffrion Street.

An office, and the rest of the house

The time you save on commuting goes to family and leisure. The private garden and the garden-level backyard offer a breath of fresh air between two meetings; our article on the house with a backyard near Montreal describes what the lots include. And if you'd rather not spend those hours on upkeep, read our article on the maintenance-free home near Montreal as well.

Conclusion

A house with a home office near Montreal makes sense if you work from home part of the week and your current place no longer leaves you room to do it. At BÉAcité, an open office, an optional mezzanine or the basement each offer an answer, about 34 minutes from downtown when the road is clear. Stop by the sales office at 435 Geoffrion Street with your workspace in mind: you'll be shown the homes, and you can see where it would fit.

Working from home off the island: a house with a home office near Montreal