The government of British Columbia (BC), Canada, has taken a lot of heat over the last few years -especially in the last six months - for ignoring Vancouver’s out-of-control housing crisis. Property prices in the city, which is very popular with Chinese property investors, shot up by 30% in 2015.
After years of refusing to implement any new taxes on foreign homebuyers, the province announced on the 24th of July that it would start charging a 15% tax on foreign investors.
BC finance minister Mike de Jong told local reporters that the tax amounts to $300,000 for a $2m home. According to a small slice of data collected by the government last month, foreign investors make up 5.1% of the Metro Vancouver housing market, which amounted to over $1bn in property purchased between June 2010 and June 2014.
However, some observers have commented that the luxury home market in Vancouver has been heating up in large part because of wealthy migrants moving to Canada, rather than from property investors that are based overseas. These new Canadian citizens won’t have to pay the new 15% tax so the impact on slowing property prices could be limited.
