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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @09:06PM
Nobody wants to invest in new housing because they rightly (happened several times in NY) fear that rent control with be applied to the new housing, despite promises otherwise. It's called "recapture".
What little does get built outside of rent control will go for a silly high price. Supply is limited, because nobody wants to invest. Even the mere suggestion of rent control will crater investment.
When rent control is allowed to reset upon change of tenant, landlords factor in future expenses. If the average tenant stays for 40 years, then take current rates and add 2 decades worth of inflation plus a bit of a fudge factor to be safe.