Fort Erie tops province in foreign-owned property

As foreign ownership of homes in Toronto continues to rise and create financial concerns for that city, new statistics show that Fort Erie is actually the province’s hotbed of nonresident home ownership.

The provincial government brought in a new foreign-ownership tax last year to try and curb the rate at which non-Canadians were purchasing housing units in Ontario. New condo units and single-detached homes in Toronto are being snapped up by purchasers from outside the country, with the properties often sitting empty as they are used for investment purposes. The practice is driving up prices, and creating an artificial scarcity of housing.

This summer, Statistics Canada dug into the numbers and found that while Toronto’s rate of nonresident ownership is unusually high at about four per cent, it’s less than half the nonresident home ownership rate in Fort Erie, which is about nine per cent.

However, as the report from Statistics Canada indicates, the numbers in Fort Erie have arguably been skewed since most of the foreign ownership is concentrated in the vacation home and cottage areas of town. While there is plenty of evidence to suggest foreign-owned investment properties are driving higher prices and lower availability in Toronto, there is no link between vacation properties owned by non-residents having any impact on the wider housing market.

The fact that Fort Erie has the province’s highest rate of nonresident home ownership would come as little surprise to local residents, since many have encountered the American cottagers who control wide stretches of the waterfront. Fort Erie has long enjoyed a friendly relationship with the American cottagers, though public access to certain parts of the privately-owned waterfront has become a hot topic in town this summer thanks to the Point Abino Lighthouse.

The lighthouse is a townowned tourist attraction, but it sits within a gated community of mostly American cottagers, and the public has limited access.

Other parts of town where the public-owned beach meets the privately-owned beach (which is often linked to century-old cottages that have been handed down through generations of American owners) have been a point of contention also, after signs were erected this summer at the public-private intersection, warning people to stay off the private beach.