How should Canada regulate foreign ownership in the housing market
CBC FORUM
How should Canada regulate foreign ownership in the housing market?
Canada doesn’t have a good official estimate of how much foreign money is invested in housing
CBC News Posted: Mar 07, 2016 4:35 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 07, 2016 9:34 PM ET
Chinese investors’ global hunt for prime real estate has helped to drive Vancouver home prices to record highs. (Julie
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says it has been in contact with tax authorities and police agencies that track money laundering in order to beef up its data collection regarding foreign buyers.
It’s an issue that has become divisive in recent months and years as Canadian house prices — especially in the two hot markets of Toronto and Vancouver — set sales records with each passing month.
- CMHC looks for new ways to track foreign money in Canadian real estate
- Expect trouble if and when foreign buyers abandon Canadian housing: Don Pittis
- Vancouver foreign ownership research prompts cries of racism in hot housing market
- Mike de Jong says foreign ownership tracking will ensure ‘our rules’ are followed
In November, CMHC head Evan Siddall said he suspects foreign money is driving up prices, especially in the luxury home market.
“In Vancouver and Toronto, it is very possible that foreign buyers account for a substantial portion of the demand for pricier, luxury single-family homes,” Siddall said last fall, adding that the agency was looking at beefing up its data on the subject.
CBC business columnist Don Pittis argued late last year that it’s a “scandal” Canada doesn’t have a good official estimate of how much foreign money is invested in Canadian housing, when other countries assemble that info as a matter of course.
B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong told CBC News last month that the province will be able to formulate recommendations after it has collected foreign ownership data.
“There are all kinds of approaches and ideas,” he said. “Our objective here is not to suddenly say to the rest of the world that people aren’t welcome here and that we aren’t encouraging people to come here to invest, to create jobs, to create businesses. But we also want to make sure that there’s equity. We want to ensure that people are following our rules and paying the taxes that they are obliged to pay.”
What do you think?
How should Canada regulate foreign ownership in its housing market?
Readers let us know in the latest CBC Forum — a live, hosted discussion about topics of national interest.
(Please note that user names are not necessarily the names of commenters. Some comments have been altered to correct spelling and to conform to CBC style. Click on the user name to see the full comment in the blog format.)
Some commenters said there was no need to do anything.
“Why would we dissuade investment in this country? There are tens of thousands of jobs being created in the construction industry. We don’t need some interventionist political agenda messing up free enterprise based on folklore surrounding foreign ownership.” — Dean (The one who got here…
“This is a perceived problem to make people blame the bogeyman while ignoring the real cause of the problem (people over-borrowing). Far easier to blame others than ourselves.” — mrclam
A majority of commenters wanted restrictions.
“Any solution implemented will need to be retroactive to make any difference whatsoever. To correct housing prices you need to have three things happen: 1. Raise interest rates 2. Outlaw shadow flipping and discourage any speculation, with massive taxes on it 3. Severely tax foreign owners at least 50 per cent of the assessed value unless they can prove residency at least six months a year.” — Jeff Quigley
“Levy a tax on ‘underoccupied’ residences. Collect data from utilities providers which should strongly indicate whether a property or unit is actually occupied. If you are not an active participant in our economy (either by living in the home you own or renting it to a tenant), then you should bear the ‘opportunity cost’ to our economy. By which I mean the following: Had another person acquired the property as a residence, they would be an income- , payroll- and sales tax-paying member of the community. You as a non-resident, non-participant give nothing back to Canada.” — CougarCommenter
“What about massively increasing the cost of a demolition permit in the overheated markets? If a demolition permit was set to equal the sale price of the house, that would massively curb the appeal of buying a heritage house and tearing it down.” — partridge
Several commenters said, regardless of where you stand, more data is needed.
“First we need some concrete information before making a judgement or coming up with rules.” — W May
“The first thing is to collect comprehensive data about current ownership. We need a government law that mandate every owner to report their citizenship status as well as their job and their primary residence. I am amazed that CRA is not collecting these data even for tax purposes.
Several commenters said, regardless of where you stand, more data is needed.
“First we need some concrete information before making a judgement or coming up with rules.” — W May
“The first thing is to collect comprehensive data about current ownership. We need a government law that mandate every owner to report their citizenship status as well as their job and their primary residence. I am amazed that CRA is not collecting these data even for tax purposes. After that we can have an informed discussion.” — Jane
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17 hours ago
Welcome to CBC Forum, a live, hosted discussion where readers can talk about stories of national interest and the issues that arise from them.
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17 hours agoCanada should regulate its housing market by forcing strict occupancy requirements for those who wish to purchase a Canadian home. I.e. you must live in the house X months each year. _OR_ eliminate limit foreign ownership to condo’s or only ‘professionally managed’ residences.
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17 hours agoWe should do it like the Swiss. On price for people that live and work here. Another price completely for those who are just playing with their ‘portfolio’.
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17 hours ago(1) Seize all foreign owned residential property. (2) Make Canadian citizenship a requirement to purchase residential property.(3) Lower the artificially over-inflated housing prices (4) CANADIANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO PURCHASE AFFORDABLE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY.
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CougarCommenterYour approach is clearly a step too far. There is nothing wrong with foreign investment in Canada. The problem is UNOCCUPIED property used for speculation or as a store of value for laundering ill-gotten gains abroad. If a foreigner owns real estate and rents it out to someone who lives in that community, then I don’t have a problem with that.
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GregThat’s just your opinion. If they want to invest in business, that’s one thing. But, residential property? Canadian’s should come first. Let’s solve our problems at home before we worry about ANYONE else.
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spark-dFor the mere fact that we have an affordability crisis, yes, foreign ownership should stop. However, we don’t need the market completely crashing so measures would have to be taken gradually.
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Janet Lynn WebsterI think Realtors in Canada should not be self regulating. There should be an independent regulatory body. The shadow flipping in Vancouver is rampant.
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17 hours agoThanks for opening up this forum CBC. This is an important conversation for all Canadians, as potentially foregone tax revenue at the Federal level (in the form of forfeited capital gains tax or even possibly fully taxable income for foreigners in the business of flipping Canadian property) increases the tax burden on other Canadian taxpayers.
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17 hours agoThis is a very hard thing to do, in a free an open democracy like ours. For instance, if someone set up a corporation in Canada, this is then a Canadian entity – and can have a Canadian board of directors. How do you differentiate this from a Canadian owned corporation – which also has Canadian directors. And then to make it harder – say the company was owned by Canadians – and then sold it to foreigners – which is a private deal, which does not have to go through any land titles registry – and in fact, does not have to get registered anywhere.
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CougarCommenterAdd a regulation that if you are a company, more than 50% of the fair market value of which is driven, directly or indirectly, by net equity in residential real estate you must file a notice with the land title registry or some other agency
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Jeff QuigleyCompanies or shell companies should not be able to purchase residential property period. That’s ridiculous knowing the limited supply of homes in Canada nation wide.
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YVRthe effects of this disaster will be felt in the next 10-15 as people move out, employers can’t find people and families exit the metro area
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Jeff QuigleyI would say less than 10 years. More like the next 1-3 years.
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Janet Lynn WebsterI think Canadian realtors should not be self regulating. Shadow flipping and vacant homes n condos in Vancouver are a real problem.
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17 hours ago
As a mid-30 year old Canadian business owner with ample money in savings that makes a decent living, it’s a shame I can’t afford to purchase a home in the neighbourhood I grew up in (in a suburb north of Toronto).
My wife and I rent, and most of our neighbours consist of empty homes bought by foreigners.
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YVRthis affects rentals as they go up in prices and owners can sell at anytime to ‘cash’ in……the vacancy rate is afected
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17 hours agoSolutions:
(1) Canadian Citizenship required to purchase property
(2) Requirement for all purchases to put their full legal name and government issued ID number on their “Purchase of Sale Agreement” to help better track who these people are.
(3) Automatic investigation of anyone purchasing a home for over $1.5M to see if funds were illegally obtained.-
YVRwhen you have places in Langley and further out now going for 1 million? people wake up and give your head a shake…….house of cards will come down and locals will pay for that
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Greg@ CougarCommenter Your entitled to your opinion. But globalization/global economy is a HUGE mistake that does not serve anyone but the rich in my opinion.
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CougarCommenter@Greg – Participating in the global economy serves Canada if we tax it right. Right now its being exploited because of clearly inferior regulation compared to our southern neighbours.
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Greg@ CougarCommenter Like that will happen…. Especially if it hurts someones wealthy friends….
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GregTrusting government and business to get this right, is like playing ‘paddy cake’ with a hungry tiger.
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17 hours agoFirst we need some concrete information before making a judgement or coming up with rules.
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GregNo, we don’t. Between my wife and I we make almost 200K a year, which we are very fortunate for. But we still can’t buy a house in Vancouver with breathing room for savings. What else do you need to know?
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17 hours ago
The Werewolf writes:
“We regulate almost every other kind of investment in Canada. I’m not sure why people argue the real estate market should be different. If anything, given the history of disasters linked to the housing market (no one remembers 2008?) and given that this affect people directly not to mention affects larger, complex issues such as urban planning, I’d say MORE regulation, not less, is logical.”
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17 hours agoAny solution implemented will need to be retroactive to make any difference whatsoever. To correct housing prices you need to have three things happen. 1. raise interest rates 2. outlaw shadow flipping and discourage any speculation with massive taxes on it 3. severely tax foreign owners at least 50% of the assessed value unless they can prove residency at least 6 months a year.
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Sean Gnumber 3 would work wonders
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17 hours agohow should we regulate the market —??
that’s a leading question —-not permissible —
the market does not need to be regulated —beyond –buyer/seller -done deal —after that if they pay the taxes —welcome to canada-
YVRyou should not be able to hide ownership to spouses and student children the govt needs to be more active on who and source fund tracking for foreign buyers – too much hanky panky and include more regulation on realtors with the speculation and flipping before sales even close!
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GregMost people living in Vancouver that I know, did not make a ‘lifestyle’ choice, but a ‘job’ choice. I’m sure the marketing literature from city hall would have you think otherwise…
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CougarCommenter@ Greg – Agreed. People who are suggesting kids who grew up in Vancouver should move if they can’t afford a home… This is their home! Homes going up 20% year-over-year is just insanity.
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Dwayne RudolphThe market does not need to be regulated? Sounds familiar…like comments made by banks, stock brokers, investors and realtors just before the 2008 financial crisis in the US. Sure glad we didn’t try to regulate because that turned out really well. NOT! It is also the same people asking us not to do anything in this case. Follow the money. Ask yourself, who profits from rising house prices, moving money out of China when there is a $50,000 per year restriction, higher mortgages, etc.?
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northstar10a lot of people thinking someone owes them something —–it is unfortunate if you cant afford the prices but would a seller want to subsidize you—this is businessif two guys show up to buy n my condo—one with a million the other with a million five i am not going to say no –i cant sell to you —there is a canadian over there wants to pay me 500 ,000 —–so dont be silly you ‘d do the same
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17 hours agoYou can talk and talk and talk about it. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot as a practical matter that can be done about it.
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GregLeaving everything up to ‘market forces’ is trivial and stupid. The problem with just relying on markets, is that they care not about society, so NO, this is not an appropriate way to help Canadians at home.
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YVRmarket forces only work when it is truly market forces? you don’t flood 1000 millionaires into a small area and expect market forces to prevail
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YVRgo back 10-15 that was true market forces
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YVRthe govt has a role to ensure fairness and that true market forces are at play and take action
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Jeff QuigleyWe are well past practical now. The damage is done and is only spreading further east. The government needs to get involved and stand up for Canadian citizens or there will not be any citizens left. An economy cannot function with only retirees and vacant investors. You either regulate the RE market and prices come down or you crash the Canadian economy when it runs out of workers.
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17 hours agoLevy a tax on “under-occupied” residences. Collect data from utilities providers which should strongly indicate whether a property or unit is actually occupied. If you are not an active participant in our economy (either by living in the home you own or renting it to a tenant) then you should bear the “opportunity cost” to our economy. By which I mean the following: Had another person acquired the property as a residence, they would be an income, payroll and sales tax-paying member of the community. You as a non-resident, non-participant give nothing back to Canada.
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JDevThe tax would have to be lower than the cost of utilities to make it appear as though someone is living there, which on 5-10mil properties would be chump change.
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Jeff QuigleyYou just need to do a full background check on the owners. All residences should have current and valid details on how to contact the actual owner. A mailing address, phone number, something! You then send out requests for residency information and if nothing is returned, the property gets a lien put on it for 6 months. If there is still no reply from the owner the property is seized as abandoned and auctioned off by the bank.
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CougarCommenter@JDev: Good point. People could just leave the heat and lights on or have them pre-set to go on-off at certain times. Quite easily manipulated and an enviornmental nightmare! Back to the drawing board on good data collection…
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17 hours agoNot only should foreign ownership be regulated but also speculation. This market is buoyed by local as well as foreign speculation. As long as we have an affordability crisis and locals can’t live in homes or rentals at a reasonable cost, speculation needs to be curbed. It is a problem when average houses in the suburbs are starting to sell for over a million. Where do the workers go? Not everyone can just up and go to another province. In North Vancouver you cant’ buy a house under 1,2 million. Regular houses are selling over 1.5m and climbing every month. Every open house I attend 2/3 of the people showing up are what seem to be foreigners, sometimes its developers looking to tear down and build new to sell to foreigners. Canadians should have first crack at housing in their own cities. We sold our house last spring to downsize because my husband is retiring. We did not profit hugely because we sold before it went really crazy. We cannot find anything to downsize to that would also let our children live there until university is finished. We would now need to pay more than our house we sold to downsize!! How messed up is that!
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Sean Gyour kids will have to go to school and work to pay their own rent. I did it, no need for you to support adults.
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17 hours agothere are many factors, it should be a fair playing field for everyone. the govt has a duty to ensure foreign funds are taxed and regulated and ensure the sources are legitimate…….how else does Joe average compete with millionaires globally on 70K salaries? other countries do not permit rich westerners to waltz in and buy up their land for the very same resons – as you can now see families and l
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17 hours agoThere’s no reason to regulate foreign ownership. Why would we dissuade investment in this country? There are tens of thousands of jobs being created in the construction industry. We don’t need some interventionist political agenda messing up free enterprise, based on “folk lore” surrounding foreign ownership.
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17 hours agoHigh Density Zones should be established whereby, based on an objective set of criteria, no new foreign ownership may occur in these areas unless they spend 183 days at that residence (making it their primary residence). Criteria could include economic reasons (housing market is unsustainable) or limited land availability for new builds (like Vancouver) etc
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CougarCommenterAlso need to consider Canadian speculation in Vancouver and Toronto’s market. Restrict ownership of vacant properties by levying a vacancy tax. Canadians who own property in Vancouver as a vacation home or on speculation are also harming the Canadian economy (urban jobs are high-paying jobs), Canadian taxation (urban residents pay all sorts of tax), and of course the local community.
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JDevTrue but that’s not what the question is regarding. If limiting foreign investment is insufficient it could be expanded as needed.
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JDevThe question is how to allow foreign builders to invest in creating new housing/rental properties.
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17 hours agoIn overheated markets, ban it. To encourage enforcement, property will be seized for anyone caught getting around the rules. Severe penalties & fines, otherwise governments won’t bother enforcing it.
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17 hours ago
I’m not convinced that all the money is foreign, and I don’t think that it should make a difference.
Whether you are from Hong Kong or West Vancouver, if you’re buying houses simply as an investment hedge, you are affecting the ability of people who need housing.
Urban areas are different from recreational areas where a “vacation home” is not unreasonable. Housing is for living, not flipping or renting by the week.
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17 hours agoGovernment action on this file is long overdue. Many countries, including those in the G20, have restrictions on foreign ownership. Based on that I would say one possible approach is to treat each country the way a Canadian would be treated if they were to try purchasing property in that country. My own personal preference is to eliminate it altogether. If it is not obvious by now that having such an attractive country in which to live, both today and when the environmental doodoo hits the fan, we attract the worlds wealthy in droves. There is not a snowballs chance that the people of Canada can compete with that. It’s an interesting parallel to how we can’t compete with 2 dollar an hour wages either.
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Jeff QuigleyI would love to see the looks on some American’s faces if they move here when Trump is elected. They probably think their strong dollar will let them live in luxury and buy whatever they want. Until they look at Vancouver or Toronto house prices and get into some bidding wars with Chinese investors that is.
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17 hours agoHousing as an investment is the biggest issue, housing should simply be a home not a way to make money. Tax house sales for non-resident owners at a high level will go some way to curbing foreign investment.
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17 hours agoHere is the solution. There is should be the additional charge for the foreign home ownership. This charge needs to be flexible, it needs to make a balance between foreign home ownership and Canadians satisfaction. Let’s say there is 10% charge for the foreign home buyers. Let’s say they buy a home for 1 million dollars. So the 100k is the charge. This ch
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Sean Ggood idea but not nearly high enough. Foreign investors are easily outbidding high income canadians by hundreds of thousands. 50% tax on the total purchase price, that might slightly level the playing field.
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JDevThat’s a nice tax grab but does it really do anything to solve the limited housing issue?
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Sean Gno, but at least they’re contributing to canada now.
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17 hours agoForeign ownership of Canadian real estate becomes a serious issue every time the Canadian dollar falls to a level that makes it look stupid, as it does right now. Who in their right mind would not buy the most desirable Canadian real estate when it is offered at a 40% to 45% discount to the American dollar. This same phenomenon occurred the last time our dollar was worth 65 cent US and it is happening again. It seems to me that a good way to curb this inflationary force on our housing market is to make the foreign purchaser pay a tax which would be the equivalent of making the US dollar at par with our own. This would level the playing field and enable Canadian buyers to compete with inflated foreign currencies. If a property is valued at $100,00 Canadian and the US buyer only has to pay $60,000 for it what chance do Canadians have to buy it? last year the money was at par: were Americans lining up to buy anything Canadian?, NO! they wouldn’t even come to our casinos, The big spenders and high rollers only come here when the dollar is the equivalent of a Mexican peso. Right now the Americans are buying up pick up trucks by converting US dollars to Canadian and pocketing huge savings with the transaction. They are buying up livestock cattle at wholesale prices with no penalty. In a few years if the dollar returns to par, Canadians are left with whatever is left over and if they wish to buy, when the dollar returns to par, Americans will sell for a handsome profit. I’m not an economist but it seems to me if people are worried about inflated prices, a levelling off tax for foreign ownership would resolve ease the problem… Could apply to Europeans also.
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17 hours agoI dont believe there is a problem. This is a perceived problem to make people blame the boogy man while ignoring the real cause of the problem (people over borrowing). Far easier to blame others than ourselves.
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Jeff QuigleyThe problem is not just foreign investment. It is a combination of three things. Foreign investment, low interest rates, and speculation. In order to fix the housing crisis you need to address at least 2 of those if not all 3.
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sdgreenI wonder if a selling price of x% over assessed value would temper the speculation along with a requirement of the purchaser to actually live in the property for an x amount of time before such can be marketed. I also think both the property assessment process, and controls over the real estate industry needs to be considered.
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Wallace CrossNo one here has a solution to the problem, australia barred foreign ownership in the interests of keeping there land open to local ownership, we should do the same, selling every last piece of property we have is a dangerous precedent since it is not limited to vancouver alone but has reached out to the suburbs
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17 hours agoThe government should increase supply not in the condo market, but in the low rise segment. Ontario’s densification policies are constraining supply, leading prices to go unsustainably higher. There should also be freely available data on all house purchases, just like Zillow in the U.S. It is not a free market if data is not readily available.
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17 hours agoRadical sweeping proposals like “ban all foreign ownership” are politically toxic and sound like Donald Trump material. Also there are too many loopholes–foreign buyers will buy homes indirectly using companies or relatives here on a visa. We need detailed data to design highly targeted solutions. I’m not holding my breath.
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17 hours agoJust consider that a lot of Canadians own property in the US, Mexico, etc and nobody there is complaining.
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16 hours agoA rolling scale cap. If your LOCAL real estate is over priced compared to the average of canada then 10% 20% 30% would be applied until the market levelled off for the region that’s inflated. Notice how it’s only the big city’s of canada. Foreign owners don’t bother much outside Vancouver,Kelowna,Edmonton,Calgary,Regina,Toronto.
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16 hours agoThis charge is going to the organization which is take care of the money. And this money are going to build an affordable housing for the Canadiens. Of course there will be a lot of people who wish to have this opportunity and in my opinion the priority should be given to young Canadian family between age 25 to 35. Who doesn’t have other house or place to live, who will use this place for a living not re
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16 hours agoAs a Chinese, I wholeheartedly argue that absolutely no government intervention should be allowed anywhere near the thriving housing market. Yes, it’s a bit costly to get a house. But there is a ton of money going in that will trickle down to everyone. Besides, the massice inflation won’t last. It’s going to tumble sooner or later. Gov intervention could exasperate the fall.
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DingusTrickle down to who? real estate agents?
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pawnieNo Dingus: The people selling their houses. Think of all the people being set up for life by this market or all the retirees cashing in and moving on. All this money coming into the country is being, or will be spent by us. It’s trickle down economics in its purest form. I’m not saying there isn’t a problem, but there is definitiely a benefit from all the foreign money coming in.
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jdthompsonNo pawnie: There is no benefit to foreign money coming into real estate. It increases the cost of living for everyone, and the cost to do business. In the end, it hurts us more than it helps.
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16 hours agoI, along with my wife’s son, my uncle’s boyfriend, and my girlfriend’s sister, live comfortablly in the periphery of Vancouver. Why bother trying to live in literal millionaireland? Come to Burnaby or New Westminister like n average, sane person.
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Sean Gthe problem is without regulation, those will all soon be over 1 milllion too
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16 hours agoAs far as regulation goes, there are many ways to do so. The simplest one would be to ban foreign ownership of residential homes altogether , especially at times when Vancouver and Toronto are facing an affordability crisis. If and when the country decides it needs to give its real estate a boost again, it can consider allowing it again.
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16 hours agoYes and they should also also regulate people buying 2nd homes for flip ups and business while there are people that cant find a house to live in. They are rising up the prices to make is affordable for many locals. The locals are pushed out of their homes. Many are buying homes that they can’t afford and that can have band consensuses in the future.
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16 hours ago
I *honestly* think that all this talk of foreign ownership is nothing but the real estate industry marketing. Pushing the “buy now or be priced out forever by foreigners” mantra.
I’m sure there ARE cases of foreign buyers, but I dont believe they are the soul cause of over inflated prices in BC and Toronto. Well, any more than because they’re being touted as such by realtors.
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spark-dReally? They are a large part. How many locals can afford over a million or two million. One million is the average cost of a house in the lower mainland. I think that realtors are definitely using this to prop up sales, but I am out there every weekend and see with my own eyes what is going on. I hear from others that say they were outbid by foreigners with cash.
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16 hours ago
What about massively increasing the cost of a demolition permit in the overheated markets?
If a demolition permit was set to equal the sale price of the house, that would massively curb the appeal of buying a heritage house and tearing it down.
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16 hours agoIt shouldn’t. I hear a lot of talk about they think it is a problem, but no real evidence. let the market take care of itself.
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16 hours agoin the 1970’s Prince Edward Island’s law preventing non-Canadians from buying island property was struck down by the Supreme Court. This should be revisited, by governments and by courts. Norway is I believe one country that has such a law.
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16 hours agoInvestors receive tax-breaks on mortgage interest that regular buyers do not receive (solution: make mortgage interest tax deductible by everybody or nobody). Investors avoid paying down the principle because 65% of a home’s value can be rolled into a revolving line of credit (solution: reduce that percentage).
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16 hours agoThere should be proof that the buyer has shown intent to live and contribute to this country (i.e,e is a new immigrant). If he or she is new or non-resident, then a 100% surcharge should be applied and the proceeds will go to the govt to build schools, hospitals etc. No non-resident should be allowed to sell the property for a period of 6 years.
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16 hours agoAs much as there are foreign buyers, there are local sellers willing to sell to whomever offers the most money and have as much to do with the inflated prices.
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16 hours agoOne of the biggest issues with foreign ownership is the lack of residency. Cities have to supply services assuming that there is residency in all the buildings; which cost cities more without the user fees to pay it down. IMHO increasing both the property tax and the resident discount substantially is the way to tackle any issue. It will encourage personal home ownership over renting as well as offset the income loss to local governments that is cause by the high vacant owership issue.
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16 hours agoLast week a 7.8 million dollar house sold for over 9 million. Of the 11 offers 10 were foreign interests using their families VISA’s to purchase the property on their behalf. (1) Getting proper information about who is buying and where the money is coming from is definitely a must. (2) A tax on foreign ownership is needed to level the playing field. I say 50% tax on any purchase of a property from foreign interests. This would give average Canadians a chance to compete and generate millions for our government.
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16 hours ago
I agree with Radon. It is very difficult to live in Vancouver where we grew up, though we own a house in the Interior. Currently, we rent in Vancouver as we care for elderly relatives.
The neighbourhood around us is in a continual state of demolition and reconstruction of big ugly houses. Can’t wait to leave!
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16 hours ago
It is long past that something be done about this.
Other countries like UK and Australia have rules to limit foreign ownership. The most basic ones are just common sense: collect comprehensive data about owners and make laws to make that mandatory and punish any realtor who tries to cheat. Prevent foreigners from buying existing houses. Tax houses which are not used as primary resident of owner while removing the tax on the primary resident of people.
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16 hours agoRaza Mirza, no petitions please. If you like, I can publish the comment with the link removed.
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16 hours agoI think if a foreign investor wishes to buy Canadian Real Estate in Canada, they need to open up a business and employ a minimum of 10 employees with above average household income and must stay in business for a minimum of 10 years instead of just buying single detached houses which dos not help locals. This will help stimulate the economy without hurting locals. They must also reside in Canada as well.
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16 hours ago
How should Canada regulate its housing market to foreign ownership?
Anything. Literally anything would be better.
We don’t know how many houses are foreign owned. We don’t investigate suspicious properties for tax evasion or money laundering. We don’t ensure houses are being used. We don’t apparently care that some neighborhoods are quite empty.
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Sean Gwell said
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16 hours ago
Honestly I don’t think anything is going to change because there is not a political will to fix the issue unless people in Toronto and Vancouver start contacting their MPs about the issue.
There is a powerful construction and realtor lobby that wants to keep things as is and politicians are no going to do anything unless they are forced to by us.
We should do it like the…Same thing we do with Universities. If you are not from here, you pay more. Plain and simple.
Mar 7 2016 4:48 PM