A tax on foreign homebuyers in Vancouver cut luxury purchases in Canada’s priciest housing market by more than half last month, according to a brokerage report. Meanwhile, high-end sales in Toronto surged.
Transactions in Vancouver of at least C$1 million ($759,000) slid 65 percent from a year earlier to 95 units in August, the month that a 15 percent transfer tax on deals by non-Canadian homebuyers took effect, according to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. At the same time, luxury-home sales in Toronto and its suburbs doubled to 1,459 units, the high-end brokerage said.
The housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver are heading in separate directions after at least a decade of similar growth. Vancouver’s tax, which took effect Aug. 2, was implemented by the British Columbia government to cool prices in the city after they doubled in the past 10 years.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner By Katia Dmitrieva via Bloomberg Business ‘ September 14, 2016.
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