Taxes that sent Vancouver's luxury housing market reeling

Home sales in March weakest since the financial crisis; more costly to both buy and own expensive homes

Add BT as a preferred source

Published Tue, Apr 16, 2019 · 09:50 PM

Vancouver

VANCOUVER'S housing market is buckling under a slew of taxes and regulations introduced since 2016 to tame years of relentless growth that made the city the most unaffordable on the continent.

The high end felt the impact first and has been the hardest hit: prices in West Vancouver, Canada's richest neighbourhood, are down 17 per cent from their 2016 peak. The slowdown is now broadening: home sales in March were the weakest since the financial crisis and benchmark prices fell 8.5 per cent from their record last June.

It's become more costly to both buy and own expensive homes, particularly for non-resident investors and foreigners.

To get a sense of the impact from the municipal, provincial and federal measures, take as a hypothetical example, the province's most valuable property: the C$73.12 million (S$74 million) house belonging to Vancouver-based Lululemon Athletica Inc founder Chip Wilson. A foreign purchaser of the home who leaves the property empty for much of the year would end up paying as much as C$20.8 million in taxes as follows:

Taxes on purchase