Vancouver Wields C$10,000-a-Day Fine in Crackdown on Empty Homes

[misher]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Nice to see $39 million roll into Vancouver's coffers from the Empty Homes Tax. And be careful would-be evaders, sounds like the city has some resources to investigate:


Vancouver empty homes tax nets another $39M as number of vacant properties drop, city says

BY SEAN BOYNTON GLOBAL NEWS
Posted November 20, 2019 7:02 pm

Vancouver’s empty homes tax continues to be a revenue generator for the city despite drawing from a shrinking number of vacant homes, the latest report from the city finds.


Released Wednesday, the report reveals that $39.4 million in revenue was raised during the 2018 tax year, which was collected from the owners of 1,989 vacant properties.

That’s a 22 per cent drop from the number of vacant properties taxed in 2017, when 2,538 homes generated $38 million in revenue...

...“For those who choose to keep their properties unoccupied, we appreciate their contributions to the funds that are supporting various, much-needed affordable housing initiatives across the city.”

Another 892 property owners were charged the tax after non-compliance audits were performed on an additional 8,457 properties between Nov. 2, 2018, and Nov. 1, 2019. Those audits raised an additional $22.1 million.

That’s way up from the same period a year ago, when $6.2 million was raised from 331 property owners charged after audits on 6,231 homes....(bold mine)

https://globalnews.ca/news/6197311/v...-revenue-2019/

And close to a billion decrease in property transfer tax revenue for the province plus a couple hundred million decrease in development fees for the city and transfer of property tax burden from luxury to affordable homes ^^ Don't worry though I'm sure the $39 million will cover the losses.



Note that of the 2019-2022 Capital Plan for Vancouver, 90% of the funding for new assets (1.2 billion) comes from development.
https://vancouver.ca/your-government...2019-2022.aspx

Affordable housing initiatives cost the city over $600 million a year. $39 million isn't going to make a dent.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by misher

Affordable housing initiatives cost the city over $600 million a year. $39 million isn't going to make a dent.

... not quite. $400 million of that $600 are the below-market units that mostly come from private development and have a, for instance, social housing component as their CAC contribution or simply they supply a CAC.

Depends on your definition of being a "cost the city" and it's over contributions made from 2019-2022.

[misher]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

... not quite. $400 million of that $600 are the below-market units that mostly come from private development and have a, for instance, social housing component as their CAC contribution or simply they supply a CAC.

Depends on your definition of being a "cost the city" and it's over contributions made from 2019-2022.

Thanks for correcting me.

[Vin]

I wonder what the total revenue is like comparing 2007 to 2016.
(lazy to do research)

[Changing City]

[QUOTE=misher;8755422]And close to a billion decrease in property transfer tax revenue for the province plus a couple hundred million decrease in development fees for the city and transfer of property tax burden from luxury to affordable homes ^^ Don't worry though I'm sure the $39 million will cover the losses.QUOTE]

Hi Misher. I realise your modus operandi is to comment on a topic by throwing in some statements, ‘facts’ and graphics, that might or might not be true, or relevant, so your post follows a pattern.

The point of the program is to persuade owners to rent their homes, rather than leave them empty. That seems to be working. “The city found the number of properties tenanted went up by seven per cent from 2017 to 2018, from 46,770 to 50,102.”

The $39 million is all extra revenue that wouldn’t come to the City without the empty home tax. “The city says $17 million from the 2018 revenue will go towards the Community Housing Incentive Program, which council approved to give grants to housing developers who provide social or co-op housing.

The city will also purchase the Ross House, a 24-unit single-room occupancy (SRO) building in the Downtown Eastside, for $3.8 million, while also contributing $1.7 million to revitalize other SRO housing projects.”

The Property transfer tax is a Provincial tax. The City don’t see a cent of it, so how is it relevant to the Empty Home tax charged by the City?

The City raised $9.7m in Development Fees in 2016, $10.7m in 2017, $13.9m in 2018 and expect the 2019 revenue to be higher – it’s not like development has slowed down in Vancouver. So development fee income is increasing.

I have no idea what “transfer of property tax burden from luxury to affordable homes” means, or what it has to do with a tax on empty homes, but it appears you might not really understand how municipal budgets work. The City won’t get less money if house values change – the valuations only affect what each owner has to pay, not the total the City collects.

The charts you borrowed from somewhere are about the sources that all the Metro Vancouver municipalities collect their revenue – not the City of Vancouver. It also seems to have no relevance to the collection of the tax on vacant properties.

[Changing City]

The City of Vancouver increased the 2020 Empty Homes Tax from 1% to 1.25%. It will go up another 0.25% in 2021 and in 2022, unless Council revisit that idea. [source]

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The City of Vancouver increased the 2020 Empty Homes Tax from 1% to 1.25%. It will go up another 0.25% in 2021 and in 2022, unless Council revisit that idea. [source]

And a national tax will be coming soon:

Overseas owners of homes in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the rest of Canada, outside of parts of British Columbia, could soon be subjected to a national vacancy tax for the first time.

The proposed tax was part of the platform of the federal Liberal Party of Canada, which won the October federal election to form a minority governnment.

The first of its kind, the national equity tax proposes to penalize overseas-based real estate buyers by one per cent on the property's assessed value, per calendar year. The parliamentary budget office expects the tax would rake in revenues of $217 million in the first year.

The tax would apply to all residential properties owned by non-Canadians who are not resident in Canada — including corporations and trusts — but houses, condos and townhomes that are rented to tenants who are not immediate family members will be exempt...

https://biv.com/article/2019/11/nati...-expected-soon

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by whatnext

And a national tax will be coming soon:

Overseas owners of homes in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the rest of Canada, outside of parts of British Columbia, could soon be subjected to a national vacancy tax for the first time.

The proposed tax was part of the platform of the federal Liberal Party of Canada, which won the October federal election to form a minority governnment.

The first of its kind, the national equity tax proposes to penalize overseas-based real estate buyers by one per cent on the property's assessed value, per calendar year. The parliamentary budget office expects the tax would rake in revenues of $217 million in the first year.

The tax would apply to all residential properties owned by non-Canadians who are not resident in Canada — including corporations and trusts — but houses, condos and townhomes that are rented to tenants who are not immediate family members will be exempt...

https://biv.com/article/2019/11/nati...-expected-soon

So basically we were the guinea pig testing it out for the rest of the country.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Sheba

So basically we were the guinea pig testing it out for the rest of the country.

No issues with that. If they stuck to just major centers they would eventually prospect more rural properties.

[misher]

Originally Posted by MIPS

No issues with that. If they stuck to just major centers they would eventually prospect more rural properties.

Honestly I don't support applying the same rules to major cities and the country. The cabin industry is a huge economic boost to the interior and the vacation industry and its not like we're desperate for more cabins.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by misher

Honestly I don't support applying the same rules to major cities and the country. The cabin industry is a huge economic boost to the interior and the vacation industry and its not like we're desperate for more cabins.

I actually agree. As long as it doesn't affect our farmland, go for it.

[whatnext]

From today's Globe & Mail, looks like the EHT and provincial taxes are working as intended:

Policies aimed at forcing condo investors to rent out their apartments in Vancouver are working, report suggests
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER
PUBLISHED 17 HOURS AGO

B.C. and Vancouver city policies aimed at forcing investment owners of condos to rent out their apartments appear to be having an impact, say those looking at the latest national rental numbers.

The region saw an unprecedented 11,000-plus condos come into the rental market in the past year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s annual report released last week.

That far exceeds the approximately 9,000 newly built apartments, meaning a minimum of 2,000 older condos were added to the rental stock. Nothing remotely similar happened last year, when about 1,000 condos were lost from the rental market.

The numbers were even more noticeable in downtown Vancouver, where nearly 3,000 condo units were added to the rental market, but only 300 new units had been built.

Both city staff and long-time observers say it looks as though policies such as Vancouver’s empty-homes tax, the province’s speculation tax and the city’s restrictions on Airbnb rentals are having an impact – especially in Vancouver, where all three regulations are in force.

“It is absolutely significant. We haven’t seen numbers like that before,” said Dan Garrison, the city’s assistant director of housing policy. “There could be other explanations in the investor climate, but this to us is a hopeful sign.”

Eric Bond, a spokesman for CMHC, said the shift is so marked that the agency is going to dedicate some additional research to figuring out what happened, especially because of the change in Vancouver.

“We did not see the same increase in Victoria and Kelowna.”...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...ir-apartments/

[misher]

Originally Posted by whatnext

From today's Globe & Mail, looks like the EHT and provincial taxes are working as intended:

Policies aimed at forcing condo investors to rent out their apartments in Vancouver are working, report suggests
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER
PUBLISHED 17 HOURS AGO

B.C. and Vancouver city policies aimed at forcing investment owners of condos to rent out their apartments appear to be having an impact, say those looking at the latest national rental numbers.

The region saw an unprecedented 11,000-plus condos come into the rental market in the past year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s annual report released last week.

That far exceeds the approximately 9,000 newly built apartments, meaning a minimum of 2,000 older condos were added to the rental stock. Nothing remotely similar happened last year, when about 1,000 condos were lost from the rental market.

The numbers were even more noticeable in downtown Vancouver, where nearly 3,000 condo units were added to the rental market, but only 300 new units had been built.

Both city staff and long-time observers say it looks as though policies such as Vancouver’s empty-homes tax, the province’s speculation tax and the city’s restrictions on Airbnb rentals are having an impact – especially in Vancouver, where all three regulations are in force.

“It is absolutely significant. We haven’t seen numbers like that before,” said Dan Garrison, the city’s assistant director of housing policy. “There could be other explanations in the investor climate, but this to us is a hopeful sign.”

Eric Bond, a spokesman for CMHC, said the shift is so marked that the agency is going to dedicate some additional research to figuring out what happened, especially because of the change in Vancouver.

“We did not see the same increase in Victoria and Kelowna.”...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...ir-apartments/

I know you've kept insisting all the empty homes are in downtown and the west side where you stated the empty homes are owned by chinese money launderers but the latest stats show our rental increases coming from the areas with the highest % of Caucasians. How do you explain that?

Unfortunately, options are still limited for tenants—areas still facing declining vacancy rates:
Westside/Kerrisdale (from 1.5% in 2018 to 1.1% in 2019).
English Bay (from 1.1% in 2018 to 0.7% in 2019).
Kitsilano/Point Grey (from 0.8% in 2018 to 0.6% in 2019).

https://goodmanreport.com/market-ins...-was-released/