Vancouver home sales dropped 26% in wake of foreign-buyers tax
Sales fell 26 per cent last month in Greater Vancouver’s real estate market while prices hit new highs or stayed near records in the wake of a new tax on foreign buyers in the region.
There were 2,489 detached houses, condos and town homes in the region that sold in August, compared with 3,362 properties in the same month of 2015, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said Friday.
Industry observers had predicted a slowdown in transactions after the introduction of a new 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers that took effect on Aug. 2 for purchases registered with the province’s land title office. The B.C. government announced the change on July 25 to the province’s property transfer tax, affecting foreign buyers who acquire homes in the political entity known as Metro Vancouver.
In Greater Vancouver, which covers a large portion of Metro Vancouver, the benchmark price of detached houses, condos and town homes reached a record $933,100, up 31.4 per cent from a year earlier and an increase of 0.3 per cent from July.
The benchmark price is a representation of the typical property sold in an area, excluding the most expensive transactions on the Multiple Listing Service.
Home sales in the region were already beginning to slow this summer after a record-breaking spring.
Sales of detached houses, condos and town homes in Greater Vancouver fell 18.9 per cent in July from a year earlier. The drop was concentrated among sales of detached properties, which declined 30.9 per cent from July last year, following an 18.6 per cent annualized drop in June.
March, April and May are traditionally the busiest months for sales of existing properties, with activity slowing from June until mid-September.
The number of new listings has been on the rise since February, although the market has remained tight because of strong sales activity.
While the focus has been on an influx of buyers from China into several neighbourhoods on Vancouver’s west side, some industry observers say there are other contributing factors such as low interest rates, population growth and limited housing supply.
Source: Brent Jang and Tamsin McMahon, Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/the-market/vancouver-sales-dropped-26-in-wake-of-foreign-buyers-tax/article31688214/
