policy
BC BUDGET 2018 (PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT, FEBRUARY 2018) The provincial government in British
“new” homes into the market of available rentals, though time will tell. The most curious feature of this policy is that BC- resident-owned homes valued at under $400K are exempt from the tax; in other words, the units that won’t be brought into the available rentalhomes pool as a result of this policy are precisely the ones that should be. No new material housing policies were introduced in Budget 2019, with the government indicating that the 2018 policies have been having their intended effect. tax levied against the assessed value of homes deemed to be empty. For their part, the City has said that “the desired outcome of the EHT was conversion to rental use, not revenue generation”, so they are now looking to "improve the effectiveness of the [tax]". To this end, the City is undertaking a rate review and will report on its progress in Fall 2019, with the potential for an increase in the rate very much on the table. portion of their purchase through a shared equity mortgage with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). While this program would help reduce mortgage payments for eligible first-time buyers, in the short-term the impact could be to push up prices if no additional supply is added to balance new homeowners who otherwise may not have purchased.
Columbia introduced a slew of what were intended to be demand-suppressing housing policies as part of their 2018 budget. This included an increase and expansion of the foreign buyer tax, an increase in property transfer tax and a portion of annual property tax rates, and the introduction of a contentious “speculation and vacancy” tax. This latter intervention, which is aimed at discouraging empty, or under-used homes, according to the provincial government, likely won’t bring a discernable supply of
EMPTY HOMES TAX (CITY OF VANCOUVER, JANUARY 2018) The City of Vancouver’s Empty Homes Tax —the first of its kind in Canada—is similar to the province’s speculation and vacancy tax in that it aims to incentivize owners of empty or under-utilized homes to either sell them to someone willing to live in them or make them available as rental housing.
The tax raised $38 million in revenue for the City in 2018 through the application of a 1%
CANADA BUDGET 2019 (FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, MARCH 2019) The recent Federal Budget established
three housing-related goals: to make home ownership more affordable for first-time buyers; to boost housing supply; and to increase fairness and transparency in the sector. On the affordability side, a First-Time Home Buyer Incentive Program will allow eligible first-time buyers who have their down payment for insured mortgages to finance a
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