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Government-imposed costs are just the tip of the iceberg in home ownership
With taxes, levies, fees and restrictive rules adding nearly $80,000 to the cost of an average new home in Metro Vancouver, it`s easy to finger governments as a bad guy in driving housing costs sky-high.
But that`s just the obvious. Government influence on house prices — not all of it for wrong reasons — is far greater than that. It includes:
• Maintaining ownership of a great deal of park and other public land, which drives up the price of what`s left to develop.
• Requiring owners to withhold from development countless thousands of additional acres through policies from the ALR to provision of parking to subdivision amenities.
• Limiting density in many residential neighbourhoods.
• Subsidizing people to choose bigger homes than they might otherwise afford through residential property tax rates set far lower than the cost of service, government mortgage insurance that lets people borrow more money more cheaply than they otherwise would, homeowner grants that pay up to half the property tax bill, and tax-exempt capital gains, which makes a home (at least, one in the right place at the right time) a savvy investment as well as place to live.
Read the full article here.
With taxes, levies, fees and restrictive rules adding nearly $80,000 to the cost of an average new home in Metro Vancouver, it`s easy to finger governments as a bad guy in driving housing costs sky-high.
But that`s just the obvious. Government influence on house prices — not all of it for wrong reasons — is far greater than that. It includes:
• Maintaining ownership of a great deal of park and other public land, which drives up the price of what`s left to develop.
• Requiring owners to withhold from development countless thousands of additional acres through policies from the ALR to provision of parking to subdivision amenities.
• Limiting density in many residential neighbourhoods.
• Subsidizing people to choose bigger homes than they might otherwise afford through residential property tax rates set far lower than the cost of service, government mortgage insurance that lets people borrow more money more cheaply than they otherwise would, homeowner grants that pay up to half the property tax bill, and tax-exempt capital gains, which makes a home (at least, one in the right place at the right time) a savvy investment as well as place to live.
Read the full article here.