Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday September 16 2016, @03:05AM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @10:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @10:20PM (#402965)

    Dont be silly. There are no rich Chinese, China is a communist country.