How can a foreigner trust Canada if they feel that Canada wants to punish them
Ephraim Vecina
Canadian Real Estate Wealth
Instead of moderating the overheated Vancouver market, the B.C. government’s implementation of a 15 per cent property transfer tax on foreign home buyers earlier this month has led to a chorus of condemnation from various observers and segments—most notably Chinese agents and buyers, who many quarters have alleged as the main drivers of housing price growth.
Licensed real estate agent Jack Li has helped multiple Chinese investors purchase around 40 condos over the past two years, but he has recently voiced dissatisfaction over the hastily applied tax.
“It’s a tragedy,” Li told The Globe and Mail.
“It’s going to have an impact on me, my family and my business, even though I made a lot of contributions to the B.C. economy. I put money there. I have brought people to B.C. And I told people Canada is a good place.”
Li, who has worked and lived in Canada for a year and a half prior to working as an agent in B.C., said that a significant proportion of buyers who might have been interested in getting a home in Vancouver would be scared off instead.
“If the government had said 5 per cent or even 8 per cent, that’s reasonable. But 15 per cent, that’s a lot. That’s a very heavy tax,” Li said.
“This is not about the real estate market,” overseas sales agent Xie Xingyu agreed. “From my point of view, it’s political. It’s for votes. It’s not for home prices.”
Liu Fei, the Chinese consul-general in Vancouver, echoed the thoughts of various analysts who have encouraged the Canadian government to focus on supply-side solutions instead of choking off demand.
“If government has no plan, any policy can be the start of a disaster,” she told Chinese media last week.
Even Canadian agents outside Vancouver have mirrored these fears, saying that high-demand properties—especially those in the luxury segment—would become increasingly out of reach of domestic buyers as a result.
“Where are those foreign investors going to go? They’re not going to want to pay that 15 per cent, so they’re going to now dump it into the Toronto real estate market, which is already hot,” Toronto-based real estate agent Derek Ladouceur said.
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