Canada boasts the 9th largest economy, pristine environmental standards, a robust legal framework, universal healthcare, world class education, and numerous …
Canada boasts the 9th largest economy, pristine environmental standards, a robust legal framework, universal healthcare, world class education, and numerous …
How many homes are empty?
Are you suggesting the reason house prices are high is because they are all empty and no one is selling them for the high prices?
There are certainly overpriced vacant homes in the more expensive metropolitan areas (coughcondoscoughTorontocough), but I doubt there are enough of them to make a visible dent in the housing issue.
Empty houses in the Metro Vancouver area have certinaly been an issue [source]. The B.C. Speculation and Vacancy Tax was implemented to discourage this behaviour [source]. Theoretically, it should also capture the negative impact that vacant housing has on society and the economy.
Has implementing the speculation tax lowered house prices in B.C.?
I would guess that it is extremely difficult to quantify how much of an effect the tax has had on the housing market. Anything beyond a guess, however, would be outside of my qualifications — I would defer to those who have looked into this more appropriately. After a very quick, and cursory websearch, I found a paper that stated the following:
So what were we talking about before you started trying to derail this conversation with endless questions?
Is that rhetorical? I don’t understand the purpose of your seemingly condescending question.
Why do you constantly ask questions without adding anything to the conversation?
That’s a loaded question; I disagree with the premise — I feel that I have provided useful information and context. You, however, have not provided anything but seemingly non-constructive and condescending content for your past 3 comments [1][2][3] in this thread.
Is empty housing a prevelant problem across Canada? I was under the impression that it was really only a problem in Metro Vancouver. Furthermore, B.C. has a vacancy tax [source], which should capture the negative societal and economic impact generated by empty housing .
People, don’t downvote someone for asking a valid question