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: 1) by terryk30 on Friday September 16 2016, @12:43PM
What Rent Control Does " rel="url2html-7515">http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap18p1.html
The above initially notes that:
...it is contended, the government, by forbidding increases in rents, protects tenants from extortion and exploitation...
But in the following supply-and-demand argument against controls (which may be a good one for all I know), nothing is offered as a substitute to counter the "extortion" possibility/effect.
To paraphrase an earlier post [soylentnews.org] of mine, rental housing is different than tomatoes at the market: if my usual vendor's tomatoes suddenly go up in price, I can easily try someone else's, whereas it's a PITA to move. What would the result be of allowing the market to "price that in" when new leases are offered? (Without ignoring messier details like tenants in jurisdictions where they have hardly any rights at all being afraid of coming home to find the locks changed and their stuff on the curb.)