Vancouver homeowners also face the City’s empty-homes tax , which was a response to the affordable housing shortage.“The point of [the tax] was to make it so the homes weren’t being unoccupied and being used for the population that lives and works here, so in that sense, it does seem to be achieving its purpose,” says Jessica Lee, co-founder of new property management firm Bodewell, which launched a year ago in anticipation of a growing rental market.
Mr. Mackenzie said that they were also motivated to launch their firm when they saw all the condo completions coming online, such as the Tate tower downtown, where they have many client investors holding units and now renting them out. West Vancouver realtor Dez Tsourpi says the bulk of her clients are investors and she is also a property investor.
He has a number of clients who are adding small basement suites to their secondary properties in order to qualify for exemption from the taxes. Only one dwelling unit in a multiunit property has to be rented for at least six months in order to be exempt. That means the main part of a house can remain empty and available for the owners whose primary residence is elsewhere, as long as there is a rental on the property.
“It’s a different ballgame,” Mr. Roberts says. “Everyone has this other job now, to deal with these taxes. … It’s very, very frustrating.”According to the City’s latest Empty Homes Tax Report, which will be updated in the fall, 331 out of 6,231 audited homeowners were found to be non-compliant with the EHT. Those owners were invoiced for the tax. Revenue generated from the audits for the first year, 2017, was $6.2-million. Total revenue earned from the EHT was $38-million, of which $17.
One can wonder how many of these houses/condos are owned by those 300.000 Canadian passport holders living in Hong Kong?
Chinese city.