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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: 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.