SUSAN LAZARUK
The Province
The house at 6712 Adera St. near 49th Avenue and Granville Street first sold in March 2014 for $3.2 million, and last sold in May for $7.6 million, said Steve Saretsky on his blog headlined: Vancouver Real Estate Speculation Runs Rampant.
He said the house’s final sale was among 179 west-side house sales in that month.
Of those, 28 houses — or almost one a day — had been sold at least once in the previous 12 months, said Saretsky, who went through the tax histories of each of the sales to come up with the number. That works out to 16 per cent of all May sales, he said.
“It’s like a lot of speculation out there,” said Saretsky, who works for Sutton West Coast Broadway Realty. “It is happening. They (buyers) are hanging on to it like stock and then selling” it at a profit.
The Adera property sold in July 2015 for $6.4 million before being sold for $7.6 million 10 months later, a $1.2-million profit. The seller made a gross profit of $120,000 a month or $4,000 a day.
Saretsky acknowledged there is “nothing illegal at all” about homeowners selling properties held for a short period of time, and speculation is risky if the market crashes.
But “it’s adding to the problem” of unaffordable housing, he said.
Vancouver west-side detachedhome prices have risen 35 per cent over the past year, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
He said he understands why governments housing fund aimed at investors and speculators. The concept calls for property owners with limited residential or economic ties to B.C. to pay a 1.5-per-cent surcharge on residential real estate.
They said it would identify offshore property owners who pay little or no income taxes in Canada and who keep properties vacant as investment vehicles. The academics say the fund would make B.C. less attractive for investors looking to park their cash in housing. are reluctant to intervene in the free market, but said something needs to be done to limit speculation.
A group of B.C. academics earlier this year proposed a tax-based housing fund aimed at investors and speculators. The concept calls for property owners with limited residential or economic ties to B.C. to pay a 1.5-per-cent surcharge on residential real estate. The money would then be distributed as lump-sum payments to all Canadian tax-filers in the collecting region.
They said it would identify offshore property owners who pay little or no income taxes in Canada and who keep properties vacant as investment vehicles. The academics say the fund would make B.C. less attractive for investors looking to park their cash in housing.
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