If the property is just sitting empty I don't see the difference

I highly doubt the majority of them are all simply speculating on the pre-sales, it's either going to be a hotel type, use once to 4 times a year property, or it's a place to park money in an empty unit.

150k on a million dollar condo is a breaking point? Really?

Even for your average person to get that extra 150k doesn't really add THAT much into your mortgage.

Imo it's more fear mongering and the actual amount of people pulling their deals is probably minuscule

Growing up with my grandparents house backing onto the CN yard at 176th, I can honestly say trains are somthing you become accustomed to over time

They said the same thing about the amount of foreigners' capital buying Vancouver real estate.

A bubble is a bubble at the end of the day. I said a while back I would careless if my home price drop by 50% (doubt it will be this far) and I stand by my statement. Love to see a big correction so my fellow Canadians can get into the city they were born in and not some foreigners who are using this city as a place of convenience.

If I've learned anything from this thread it's that China has endless money, and any amount of tax won't matter they'll just pay it because they can and prices will continue to rise. Buy Buy Buy !!!

it will be interesting to see what happens..

Anyone think that the 15% could be just the "price of doing business" cost now and not really effect anything too much?

I'd be very interested to see the actual demographics of foreign buyers and their relative net worth..

i'm with you honda...15%... rich chinese will be like :fuckthatshit: i've greased chinese officials' palms way more than that...probably thinking cdn gov officials are newbs :lol

It'll be interesting to see how much of an impact it has. The weird thing with a lot rich people is they seem to absolutely loathe parting with any extra money in the way of taxes or anything really, even if the amount is insignificant to their overall wealth.

in the last few days, did other political parties say how they will be addressing housing affordability?

i also thought this was a Libs publicity stunt at first but the last interview saying no exceptions for pre-sales and they'll be auditing loopholes (gl with the audit....i'd imagine that's very difficult) make it sound like they are serious....15% might seem insignificant but it's a start...another news article posted early say they can bump it up to 20% anytime. Ideally I'd like to see 30%

From the Vancouver Sun article.

"NDP housing critic David Eby said the NDP will propose amendments to the housing legislation to require that the tax be paid by anyone who does not pay taxes on their worldwide income in British Columbia. Rather than being based on citizenship, this would capture any purchaser who does not file their taxes in B.C."

The people that are losers in this are those who sold to a foreign buyer and have a firm contract on another home.

Some pain had to be felt sooner or later. It sucks for these people, but I don't think the Liberals had a choice from a political or policy perspective.

In my opinion the tax should go up 5% every month until the faces of the rich goes from :fuckthatshit: to :heckno:

and I thought others in this thread saying gov't intervention at this scale can only be imposed on a federal level, not provincial. This escalated quickly.

Rich people might not care, but there's tons of people around them that feed off their scraps.

The province has taxation powers, but they could deny the existence of foreign ownership because they didn't have the data. Now, they have the data and it would have been pretty hard to continue with the status quo with a straight face.

The federal government controls immigration, though some provinces have more powers to let in immigrants than others, like Quebec. And under the Charter once you have PR, you can move, work, and invest anywhere you want in Canada.

At the end of the day, the Liberals have to find a way that actually works for slowing down the cost of housing. Come election time if foreign buyers are still driving up prices voters aren't going to say "well at least you tried Libs, here's my vote!", They are going to vote for the party that's saying "we're going to take this even further until it's sorted out".

The cost of housing is pretty much the biggest election issue there is, the NDP is going to push hard on this topic and the Liberals know drastic measures had to be taken.

Seems like 15% was the perfect amount for them to settle on cause it probably won't actually deter any foreign buyer that's already loaded and it gives the government another source of tax money. A win-win for them, cash grab and still have people buying.

That was my initial thoughts as well, but with the election coming up I think they're playing the long game with this one. Unless their plan is to be voted out next May I'd expect something else to follow if this 15% tax doesn't do dick all.

I predict the market will slow down more than it has in the last 2 months and possibly take a 5-10% dip, over the next 8 months. Certainly nothing to worry about for anyone that bought before this year but not of much help to people trying to enter the market.

I think the most people should hope for is not for a drastic fall in prices, but a return to saner market conditions. For example, being able to spend several months searching for the right property and not having fear that prices will move over drastically those several months. Or, being able to make offers with subjects. Or fewer multiple offer situations which will allow for real negotiations between buyer and seller.

Fear mongoring the last few days has been funny to watch. What a change in media articles. There was an issue before just no one wanted to admit it,
Or just riding the wave?

I havnt noticed a change at all. The media has been a fan of fear mongering about the housing market here in Vancouver and Toronto for the last 6 months.

Its great for the media because this is a topic which everyone has a stake in: Everyone who owns something is paranoid about losing equity, and people who don't own anything are excited at the idea of seeing everything the people who do own something lose it all, and waiting to scoop up the remainder of these peoples shattered lives.

:thumbs:

I'm just waiting for all this to settle down, so the next group of degenerate losers can come out of the winds, "Stocks have risen wayyy too quickly the last two years and I missed the boat. The government needs to intervene and drive down the price so that I can get into the market".

Thanked for this comment. It is SOOOOO true.

It's kind of ironic, since the Liberal platform for years has been about promoting BC for foreign investment and business.

Now they're like "Whoa Whoa, we didn't actually mean THAT much"

The average person doesn't give a fuck about stocks. A place to live however, whether it's buying or renting and how much it costs is something that affects everyone that lives here.

Yeah because only entitled degenerate losers think a reasonably priced place to live is realistic right?