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from the for-$10K/year-I'll-make-a-house-look-lived-in dept.
Vancouver, suffering from a near-zero supply of homes available for rent, plans to slap investors sitting on vacant properties with a new tax in an effort to make housing more accessible in Canada's most-expensive property market.
The levy, which would start in January, may be as high as 2 percent of the property's assessed value, Kathleen Llewellyn-Thomas, the city's general manager of community services, told reporters Wednesday. That would mean a minimum C$20,000 ($15,000) annual payment for the typical C$1 million-plus detached home in Vancouver based on July 2015 assessment data, the most recent available.
"Vancouver is in a rental housing crisis," said Mayor Gregor Robertson, whose announcement follows a separate measure by the province in July to impose a 15 percent tax on foreign buyers. "Dangerously low vacancy rates across the city are near zero."
Vancouver is penalizing property owners for not renting empty buildings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 16 2016, @04:40AM
Are landlords colluding to drive up rents? There need not be any explicit arrangement, collusion can still happen through a Nash equilibrium. Fewer landlords makes it easier to do.
If so, maybe this vacancy tax is justified. Yet there ought to be other things they can do. Like, rezone some areas to change high rise apartment buildings from forbidden to allowed. Or expand public transport. Or if there really is collusion going on, why not sue the landlords for creating an artificial shortage?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 16 2016, @07:11AM
There need not be any explicit arrangement, collusion can still happen through a Nash equilibrium. Fewer landlords makes it easier to do.
I find it quite intriguing that all this shortage in real estate is brought about by two things: Canada's Commonwealth status, and, the turn over of Hong Kong to the Chinese government. So it is not a Nash equilibrium, it is a Chang equilibrium. So just cross the border! Lots of cheap real estate in Podunk, WA! You only have to worry about being surrounded by Americans, some or all of which may be carrying lethal weapons.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 17 2016, @02:55AM
The commonwealth status has nothing to do with it. The government has been courting the Chinese for years, even threw a World fair and then an Olympics to attract them. The idea was that if a bunch of wealthy Asians came over, they'd invest here and create jobs. We had the Hong Kong wave in the '90's and now we have the mainland China wave. People who are sneaking their money out of the country and parking it in real estate here, then they go back home and make more money.
America would probably demand that they pay taxes so they don't go there, and of course there's the hassle of just crossing the border into America, especially with suit cases of money. America is known for not respecting property rights or the rule of law. I believe they call it civil forfeiture where they claim your property did something illegal and confiscate it.
And of course as you say, a bunch of paranoid armed people don't make for nice neighbours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:23PM
For those who want a "Vancouver experience" without the burden of bilingualism, Washington has even built a "Vancouver" of its own. It's located conveniently downstream of Hanford!
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 17 2016, @02:39AM
Landlords don't have to collude to drive up rents, there's a 0.1% vacancy rate. High rises are being built as fast as possible, they tear down the 3 story rental apartment building and replace it with condos that cost a million dollars which are paid in cash and sit vacant as often as not.`Public transport is being expanded as fast as funds are available, which isn't very fast. Property taxes are forcing long term owners out of the city, gas is the most expensive in N. America to pay for transit, the economy is now based on the housing bubble, construction, financial services and such. Businesses are starting to fail as they don't want to pay enough to get workers (gotta keep a cup of coffee below a dollar) Minimum wage is the lowest in Canada combined with one of the highest costs of living and businesses won't pay much more then minimum wage, instead they bitch about not being able to import foreign suckers ctrl-W workers, who don't realize how little $10 an hour is when you have to pay thousands to come here and then pay everything you make for a bed and food.