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Vancouver Housing Market Dialogue Continues

DonCampbell

Investor, Analyst, Author, Philanthropist
Staff member
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Aug 22, 2007
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2,005
If you are interested in the dynamic that is in play in the Greater Vancouver market, I have been asked to provide a more 'balanced' approach to the discussion.

In this post (at links below) check out a couple of more recent radio appearance in which I speak to this important issue as well as a video describing the mission of creating dialogue not just a bunch of monologues all vying for attention.

PLEASE listen and watch both before commenting? Why, because it is designed to be a dialogue, not a repetition of same old stances and opinions that we can hear and read everywhere else.

<Video> http://blog.reincanada.com/rescuing-vancouver-housing-market-discussion-from-hijackers-part-2

<radio> http://blog.reincanada.com/don-r.-campbell-on-vancouvers-housing-market
 

E

Inspired Forum Member
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Aug 2, 2015
Messages
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I've got a close friend who is dealing directly with buyers in Asia he is currently seeing right now continued high demand from chinese buyers because they are worried the government will cease money in their bank accounts. Due to the communist government, people who have legitimate capital are just as worried as people have accumulated wealth through corrupt manners.
 

Thomas Beyer

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Aug 30, 2007
Messages
13,881
I've got a close friend who is dealing directly with buyers in Asia he is currently seeing right now continued high demand from chinese buyers because they are worried the government will cease money in their bank accounts. Due to the communist government, people who have legitimate capital are just as worried as people have accumulated wealth through corrupt manners.
Indeed we have an issue in Vancouver (and to a lesser degree in Toronto and now Victoria and Lower Mainland) due to other countries failed democracies, failed population controls or failed corruption policies.

We need to far better monetize foreigners' desire to park cash here. One way to do that is to increase VASTLY the land transfer taxes on foreign owned real estate, say 15-25% for SF homes to give local buyers an advantage, and perhaps 50% of that figure for condos. Secondly we need to triple property taxes for foreign owned real estate, and thirdly we should strictly enforce taxation on any real estate sale. Likely billions of $s in unpaid taxes are unpaid as many folks own several homes but "forget" to report any gains.

In addition we have many affluent immigrants here that do not pay any income taxes here. Our tax system assumes local work and local consumption. It also assumes slowly rising real estate prices for your home, to build a nest egg. This is increasingly the wrong assumption. The affluent, usually smart immigrants do the rational choice: have the main bread winner declare (usually) his income abroad while the spouse, some kids and/or aging parents get free healthcare, free ESL, free education, free policing services while paying very low property taxes, no capital gains taxes on real estate, minor GST and PST (mainly on the new Bentley or Lambo) and no income taxes.

Our tax system taxes incomes far too high (and getting worse) and consumption, including real estate far too low. Real estate beyond mere shelter is consumption and it is under-taxed in Canada. BC has recently added a third tier to the land transfer tax scale, namely 3% of the portion over $2M [ it is 1% to $200,000 and 2% to $2M] which is a step in the right direction but not far enough.

Don't restrict foreign investment in residential real estate here, but MONETIZE IT.

Give customers what they want but charge them more. Apple does it. Tesla does it. BMW does it. Why doesn't BC ?
 
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