Dismantling of Vancouver’s Housing Market Takes Shape

Vancouver’s once meteoric housing market, battered by regulation and taxes is getting pummelled.
Dismantling of Vancouver’s Housing Market Takes Shape
A real estate sign is pictured in Vancouver in this file photo. Home prices are down over 6 percent in the last six months. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward
Rahul Vaidyanath
Updated:

Vancouver’s once meteoric housing market, besieged by regulation and taxes, is getting pummelled. It’s like tweaking the old adage to “what rises the highest, falls the hardest.” The factors that propelled it to the stratosphere have, one by one, been dismantled and perhaps a new, healthier reality will take shape.

Luxury real estate, once propped up by Chinese and speculative money, is stagnating as its lifeblood looks for friendlier pastures. The foreign buyers tax of 20 percent—up from 15 percent when first introduced in August 2016—has almost completely shut down purchases by foreigners, says Phil Moore, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).
Rahul Vaidyanath
Rahul Vaidyanath
Journalist
Rahul Vaidyanath is a journalist with The Epoch Times in Ottawa. His areas of expertise include the economy, financial markets, China, and national defence and security. He has worked for the Bank of Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., and investment banks in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles.
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