Frankly Speaking

Premier Christy Clark announced on July 25 that a 15 per cent property purchase tax will be applied to all residential property purchases by foreigners, including trusts and corporations. About six months ago, I received a call from a polling firm which was clearly working for the BC Liberals. The caller asked a number of very specific questions, and one was what issues I was most concerned about. The first thing I mentioned was the high cost of housing, and how soaring real estate prices have a devastating effect on people who are not in the marketplace. That includes people who want to buy, people moving into the area from elsewhere and renters. At that time, the provincial government had done absolutely nothing on that particular file, and in fact was all but asking investors to bring their money to B.C. and keep the real estate boom going. Not long after that call, The Globe and Mail published several crucial stories about what was actually happening in the real estate mar...

Premier Christy Clark has taken to YouTube to announce that her government plans “bold action” on the very significant issue of housing affordability. Clark said, in a video released last week, that the province will be announcing specific measures to make housing more affordable in the coming weeks. On Sunday, Housing Minister Rich Coleman and his federal counterpart announced that the federal government will spend $150 million on affordable housing in B.C. Housing prices have gone from a curiosity to an annoyance to a full-blown problem in the past few years. It’s not a problem for those who have significant equity in their homes, but it is a big problem for everyone else – renters, homeowners with large monthly payments and those who want to buy their first home, or those hoping to relocate from one home to another. Prices have been rising sharply. Many realtors admit that it is very difficult to accurately price homes because of the demand. The supply is not coming close...