Real Estate News

The head of LandlordBC expects some homeowners will start renting out their properties to avoid the province’s new speculation tax, but says it’s too soon to estimate the extent of its impact.

If one goal of the B.C. government’s new housing taxation policies was to cool home sales in the province, it has likely succeeded, if the results of a new poll of real estate agents are anything to go by.

Seemingly back from the dead, a six-storey project earmarked for Upper Lonsdale got new life as City of North Vancouver council voted recently to send the development to a public hearing.

“Just the impact was going to be so profound, so devastating," says island mayor

Time’s up for two of West Vancouver’s architecturally significant heritage homes facing redevelopment.

This massive, resort-style “Tuscan villa” in Surrey raised eyebrows and hit media headlines last summer with its record-breaking listing price of $28 million, 10 times its assessed value – later adjusted to $26 million and did not sell at the time.

Changes to the proposed B.C. speculation tax , announced by finance minister Carole James yesterday following a backlash from owners, have been broadly welcomed – but do not go far enough, according to industry groups.

A decline in Toronto’s rental prices may have put Vancouver back on top as Canada’s priciest city for one-bedroom rents, but prices have declined in all the top five most expensive rental cities.

Under changes to the proposed speculation tax, B.C. residents will now only have to pay 0.5 per cent a year on second homes valued at $400,000 or above, finance minister Carole James announced in a media conference March 26. The tax will apply to B.

"Is everybody going to suddenly come to the Sunshine Coast because they don’t have to pay the 20 per cent?”