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by wubrr 839 days ago
Most investors don't keep their housing vacant, and getting around this specific tax is trivial.

This is mostly for show, similar to the foreign buyers tax - the vast majority of investment properties are bought by local investors, but they're going to completely ignore that and blame everything on the tiny portion of foreign investors.
1 comments
ta1243 839 days ago
> Most investors don't keep their housing vacant

So who is in the housing then?

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Tiktaalik 839 days ago
renters.

Vancouver has near ~0% rental vacancy as does many, many other cities across the country. Most cities in BC are below 3% vacancy.

The fact that so much housing in Canada is being bought by investors is unsurprising. There's enormous demand for rentals and incredibly low supply.

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ta1243 838 days ago
So no matter who owns the property, they are full. The problem is still too much demand for the supply. Indeed in the UK you're more likely to have a higher population density in rented houses (2 or 3 people rent a single apartment, if they all bought they would need 3 apartments)

Why does it matter who owns the property. If the market worked well there would be no gains from asset inflation, and income from renting would be pushed towards the cost of providing renting, like it does with well functioning markets.

The problem is the lack of supply, not who owns them. Now you could argue that short-term-rents are not "valid" demand, but again with UK stats outside of very specific areas the number of short-term rentals is a tiny portion of the housing market.

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HWR_14 839 days ago
Doesn't "rental vacancy" just measure rentals on the market? A unit owned by a foreign investor intentionally left vacant doesn't show up in those numbers.
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Tiktaalik 839 days ago
I suppose but the government also has put effort into tracking empty homes. They've even gone so far so as to measure electricity use to get a feel for empty homes by neighbourhood.

Vancouver now has an empty homes tax and BC also has a speculation tax, which is effectively an empty homes tax. Since the creation of both those taxes the amount of empty homes has steadily dwindled.

It's not likely that there are a remarkable amount of empty investment condos that is having an impact on rental vacancy. The most likely cause of near zero rental vacancy is that there's not enough rental apartments in existence.

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