Foreign home buyers mostly from China says B.C. finance minister
British Columbia has released its first snapshot of foreign real estate transactions, but the Opposition New Democrats say it’s based on unreliable information that doesn’t portray the affordability “crisis’’ in the province.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong said Tuesday that just over three per cent of sales between June 10 and June 29 involved foreign buyers, mostly from China.
Forty-seven of those transactions were within the city of Vancouver while 260 included properties around Metro Vancouver.
The figures show the value of all the transactions across the province involving foreign buyers totalled $390 million during the three-week period. That amounts to 5.1 per cent of the $7.6 billion that changed hands in just over 10,000 residential real estate sales around B.C.
De Jong brought in measures in the February budget to track the role of foreign ownership in B.C.’s red-hot housing market after claims that foreign buyers affect affordability and vacancy rates.
Starting last month, the government amended property transfer tax forms to collect data about the citizenship and country of origin of people buying real estate in the province.
However, NDP Leader John Horgan said the self-reported data provide too low a figure about who is buying homes amid widespread concerns that foreigners are hiking up prices but not contributing to the economy because they don’t live or work in British Columbia.
“There are better ways to collect this information,’’ Horgan said. “Mr. de Jong has had less than three weeks to determine almost $400 million of economic activity in the Lower Mainland as a result of foreign investment. That means that British Columbians have been squeezed out of $400 million worth of real-estate activity. I think that’s wrong.’’