The Canadian Press has learned that the Ontario government will place a 15-per-cent tax on non-resident foreign buyers as part of a much-anticipated package of housing measures to be announced Thursday. The measures are aimed at cooling down a red-hot real estate market in the Greater Toronto Area, where the average price of detached houses rose to $1.21 million last month, up 33.4 per cent from a year ago. Many of the measures Premier Wynne will announce this morning were also reported by CBC’s Queens Park reporter Mike Crawley.
They include:
- A 15 per cent tax on home purchases by non-resident foreigners.
- Expanding the province’s existing rent control system to cover all tenants.
- A rebate of development cost charges to encourage building of more rental housing.
- A standardized lease document for all tenants.
- A ban on flipping of pre-construction units by speculators.
- A review of the rules governing the conduct of real estate agents.
TAX WORKED IN VANCOUVER — FOR A WHILE
British Columbia applied a 15 per cent tax against foreign buyers last year and saw the price of homes drop. But then demand continued to drive prices up and recently the market appears to be nearly as over-heated as it was before the tax.
