What to expect from B.C.’s new residential tax on foreigners

What to expect from B.C.’s new residential tax on foreigners

The new tax on purchases of residential property in metro Vancouver by foreigners that takes effect Tuesday is expected to cause further disruption to Canada’s most expensive housing market. Vancouver realtors spent the past week and much of the holiday weekend scrambling to close deals to beat the 15 per cent tax — bringing B.C.’s land registration system to a near halt.

Financial Post – Financial Post – CBC

Foreign surtax a bad idea for Toronto housing

British Columbia’s new 15 per cent surtax on foreign purchasers of residential property in the Vancouver area is a bad move. And Ontario would be ill-advised to copy the idea in the Greater Toronto Area. Yes, prices for detached resale houses have soared in recent years in Vancouver and Toronto. And, yes, this is partly attributable to rising demand, although it is not clear how much of the demand is foreign-based.

Toronto Star – CBC

Barrie developer takes unique, award-winning approach

Barrie, Ont.-based Georgian International is not your typical Canadian company so it should be no surprise that its residential development, Braestone in Horseshoe Valley, stands out from the crowd.  The company’s Braestone development was recently named Best New Home Community of The Year for 2016 by the Canadian Home Builders Association.

Property Biz Canada

The dragon in the room

Hostility toward rich, Chinese newcomers has left many asking the same question: Why is Canada willing to take our money, but then belittle us? Frances Bula talks to a hesitant community. At an ornately decorated Chinese café on a back road in suburban Richmond, three dozen people are picking at cheese and tomato sandwiches.

Globe and Mail – Seeking Alpha

OSFI orders banks to stress test mortgage accounts

Some of Canada’s banks must stress test their ability to withstand a 50 per cent drop in housing prices in Metro Vancouver area and a 40 per cent drop in the Greater Toronto Area, the country’s banking regulator says. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions also said that all banks must test for a 30 per cent downturn in valuations.

CBC.ca – Globe and Mail

Toronto condo rent rates lag home price rise

Toronto’s Sky View Suites has produced maps showing the average condo rents and house prices near each of the city’s subway stations, and it’s apparent that bargains are hard to come by along the transit line. Sky View Suites co-owner Steve Argyris cited a 16.4-per cent increase in Toronto housing prices from June 2015 to June 2016 and attributed part of it to increased foreign ownership and what he referred to as “the Manhattanization” of the city.

Property Biz Canada

When the elevators stop at one of Toronto’s tallest condos?

Stunning city views can be a perk of living on a very high floor of a downtown highrise. But when the elevators break down, what are residents to do?  More than a week ago, according to one resident at the Aura condominiums on Yonge Street just south of College Street, building management announced that all elevators were down.

CBC

CMHC warns housing prices overheated in 9 Canadian markets

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says prices are overvalued in 60 per cent of the top 15 centres it surveys across the country.  In what the Crown corporation calls its Housing Market Assessment Survey,  it said overall evidence of problematic conditions in the housing market for the country as a whole has been bumped up from weak to moderate with evidence of problematic conditions in Vancouver.

Financial Post – Globe and Mail

A return to ‘normal’ mortgage rates would crush Canadians

When Rory Green set out to buy a home, she and her husband sought out the ugliest apartment in Greater Vancouver’s housing market. The university fundraising professional is joking when she says that. But the pair reasoned they would have to buy a place and put some “elbow grease” into it if they wanted to stay within their price range.

Huffington Post

Canada’s economy is growing at the slowest pace in 60 years

Canada is in the midst of one of its weakest expansions ever, and only the housing boom keeps it from getting worse. That’s one of the key takeaways from Friday’s GDP report. Two years since oil prices started plunging, Canada’s economy is almost completely reliant for growth on bank lending and the hot Vancouver and Toronto housing markets generating fees for brokers.

Financial Post

Halifax expands downtown with more apartments, condos

The number of people living in downtown Halifax is set to expand as more apartment and condo buildings are opening in the coming years. The Roy, The Pearl and The Alexander are only a few of the projects in progress across the downtown.

The Chronicle Herald

New infill in Winnipeg’s bustling Osborne Village

The rich get richer when it comes to older, well-established Winnipeg neighbourhoods attracting new residential developments. Osborne Village, which is already the most densely populated neighbourhood in the city, is getting another new apartment building. This time it’s a four-storey, 41-unit complex to be built on two properties west of the intersection of Stradbrook Avenue and Nassau Street North.

Winnipeg Free Press

Heritage Beltline house could be saved or sunk by unique zoning

As the only house on 13th Avenue in Calgary’s popular Beltline, it sits defiantly amidst a row of condos. In February, 1988, amidst the buzz of the winter Olympics, Beverley Downey was house hunting.

Globe and Mail

P.E.I. mansion sets provincial sales record

After almost eight years on the market, a massive beachfront P.E.I. mansion with a private beach and whale watching has been sold for what is believed to be an Island record. Real-estate agent Michael Poczynek said in an interview Monday that the roughly 1,250-square-metre house in Cable Head East sold for around its current asking price — $4.75 million.

Toronto Star

Zero down on house is no problem in Silicon Valley

It turns out that even the well-off need help in a housing market as crazy as the one in the San Francisco Bay area, and lenders are elbowing each other in a rush to provide it. They’re courting Silicon Valley workers with tailored loans, guaranteed 24-hour approval and financial-planning services.

Financial Post

RENX Columnists

Making buildings greener doesn’t have to be rocket science

For years, my brother complained about the heat in the summer cottage. I’d suggested that using a soaker hose to dampen the roof would turn the whole roof into a big air conditioning unit. He finally agreed to give it a try.

Read more

Market Conditions

Foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver twice as high as previously thought

The number of foreign purchases in Metro Vancouver’s housing market is twice as high as previously thought, according to new numbers released Tuesday by the government. The figures released by Finance Minister Mike de Jong showed approximately 10 per cent of the total value of residences bought in Metro Vancouver was by foreign citizens in the five-week period between June 10 and July 14.

Vancouver Sun

B.C.’s foreign buyer tax could push Toronto home prices even higher

Last week Lena Preje listed a house for sale at 194 Hounslow Ave. in Willowdale with an asking price of $1,499,000. The agent with ReMax Ultimate Realty Inc. set the asking price a bit low, hoping to generate a bidding war. Within a few hours, a bully offer came in for $2,010,000, or $511,000 above the asking price.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail

Vancouver has little room for renter families

In a city with among the lowest rental vacancy rates in Canada, families who are struggling to find large enough apartments fare even worse. As Brad Langman manoeuvres around the kitchen of his cramped laneway home in Vancouver, his wife Fiorella Pinillos sits at their two-seater dining table, a small wooden structure typically meant for apartment balconies.

Globe and Mail

At 28, he’s making six figures but doesn’t want to own a home

Though he’s a 28-year-old engineer, Zebulon Phillips has the financial acumen of a finance grad. With a stable job and more money saved up than most GenXers, he’s decidedly a millennial poster child. An Edmonton-raised kid who didn’t come from an affluent family – “we were the mac ‘n’ cheese family” – he graduated from the University of Alberta with $41,000 in student loans.

Globe and Mail

Affordable Housing

B.C. foreign buyer tax won’t make big dent in housing affordability, experts say

Experts are expressing doubt a property transfer tax on foreign buyers that takes effect Tuesday will have a significant impact on housing affordability in Metro Vancouver. The next four to six months will be uncertain until the different players in the market decide how to react to the 15 per cent tax, said Anne McMullin, president of the non-profit industry association Urban Development Institute.

CBC

Buying and Selling

Vancouver realtor rapped for advising about tax avoidance

A top-selling real estate agent in Vancouver who sent out an email advertising how to circumvent the new foreign purchasers’ property transfer tax is being investigated by the Real Estate Council of B.C. The tax takes effect next Tuesday and long-term contracts, such as pre-sale agreements for condos under construction, involving foreign buyers will pay the new 15% tax.

Financial Post

Other

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